Determination of the Professional Career Perceptions of Tourism Guidance Students: A Comparison According to The Levels of Higher Education

Abstract

The study aims to determine the career perceptions of Tourism Guidance students. In line with this purpose, quantitative method was adopted in the study. The sample of the study was determined according to the convenience sampling method, which is one of the non-probabilistic sampling types. In this context, 406 students who continue their education in associate degree, bachelor's degree, and Master's degree in Tourism Guidance programs at Turkey's state universities constitute the sample of the study. Questionnaire was used as data collection technique in the research between January – March 2020. The data has been obtained from the online platform. Factor, correlation, analysis of variance (ANOVA), clustering and multiple fit analyses were applied to the data obtained. The findings show that tourism guidance students'
career perceptions are grouped into six dimensions: “nature of work", “difficulty of work", “value of work”, “economic return”, “freedom of religious expression”, and “prestige”; and that they urge to have a career on Tourism Guidance due to the factors apart from " prestige ". Although students' career perceptions are generally at medium and high-level range, when a comparison is made according to their higher education levels, it was found that the career perceptions of undergraduate students are higher than the others. Another finding is that male students have a higher perception of a professional career than females. Finally, it was determined that English, which is followed by Russian and Spanish, is the first preference among the languages that students want to receive a study card in the future, they want to serve as a regional guide, and in the context of specialization in the future, they will mostly prefer archeology, gastronomy and art history and cultural heritage.