An investigation into the motives and aspects of career development of university students with regard to studying psychology at first-year level
Abstract
Psychology is a very popular course amongst first-year university students in South Africa. However, an interesting paradox is that psychology is sometimes accused of being largely irrelevant in South Africa. In contrast, psychology has in general not been
a popular discipline at universities in the rest of Africa. The main foci of this study were first to explore the motives of students enrolling in a Psychology course at the first-year level at the University of the Western Cape, and secondly to explore aspects of the career development of these students which relate to the field of psychology. A focus group study was conducted, which consisted of three focus groups. All the participants in the study were first-year psychology students who had volunteered to participate. The data generated by the focus groups was thematically content analyzed