Career development theorists have a long-standing interest in exploring the personal characteristics that allow people to successfully manage their careers and integrate their self-concepts into their working roles (Hirschi & Valero, 2015). The high-order developmental construct of career adaptability (CA), which reflects a series of psychological aspects such as personality, motivation, readiness, strengths, behaviour, and attitudes, was designed in order to assess a person’s readiness for successful mastery of career tasks and capacity to prepare and participate in work roles (Hartung, Porfeli, & Vondracek, 2008). Similarly, Savickas (2013) conceptualized CA as “attitudes, competencies, and behaviours that individuals use in fitting themselves to work that suits them” (p. 45). Researchers have characterised these aspects as consisting of four dimensions: concern about the future (planning, being planful), control over life (decision making, being decisive), curiosity about occupational careers (exploring, being inquisitive), and confidence to construct a future and deal with career barriers (problem solving, being efficacious) (Hirschi, Herrmann, & Keller, 2015; Savickas, 2005).

A person-centred approach to investigating CA endeavours to determine whether it is possible to identify subgroups with distinct adaptability profiles in terms of concern, control, curiosity, and confidence. The variable-centred approaches predominantly used in existing studies of CA examine the unique and independent relationships of CA and antecedents, correlates, and outcomes (Hirschi & Valero, 2015).

Turning to studies of the environmental branch, researchers have found that CA development is not only influenced by factors within the individual but is also positively associated with factors connected with parental background and family processes (Guan et al., 2015; Hirschi, 2009; Whiston & Keller, 2004). One such study found that parental support and career-related parental behaviours may influence career decision-making self-efficacy, career exploration, occupational aspirations, and perceptions of career barriers (Keller & Whiston, 2008). Another study noted that favourable interactions in the family and family bonds encourage independence and taking career-related risks (Altman, 1997). Looking at the other side of parental involvement, similar research found that the absence of parental support, guidance, and encouragement may induce stagnation and the inability to develop, follow, and attain specific job-related goals (Kerka, 2000). Taken as whole, a supportive and instrumentally helpful family environment forms the core of facilitative factors for a successful school-to-work transition (Phillips et al., 2002).

The main objective of the research is to examine the relationships between perceived career-related parental support/behaviors, demographic variables (e.g., family structure, parental education, parental employment status) and overall CA and its dimensions (concern, control, curiosity, and confidence) concerning vocational upper-secondary school graduates during school-to-work transition.

The current research is accomplished through the longitudinal approach and uses a quantitative methodology. Data collection will take place in 3 waves (T1: March 2018; T2: January 2019; T3: November 2019). The first wave of data collection (results will be presented on conference) was taken place in the second semester of the final year of upper-secondary school, approximately 2–3 months before the respondents graduate school. The population consists of full-time students attending the final year of vocational upper-secondary schools (ISCED 353, ISCED 354; a cohort of students of approximately 18–19 years of age) in the South Moravian (area CZ064) and Moravian–Silesian (CZ080) regions in the 2017/2018 school year. Data collection is based on self-administered questionnaires: Demographic questionnaire (DQ). The DQ serves to determine respondents’ age, sex, disability, place of residence, family structure, family socio-economic status, parental education, parental employment status, early work experience, educational/employment status, etc. Career Adapt-Abilities Scale–International Form 2.0 (CAAS; Savickas & Porfeli, 2012). The CAAS is a 24-item scale used to assess adolescents’ CA. The instrument consists of four subscales measuring concern, control, curiosity, and confidence as a set of essential psychological resources for individuals’ career development. Each subscale contains six items which respondents answer on a 5-point Likert scale ranking from 1 (not strong) to 5 (strongest). The scale has very good reliability (0.92). Parent Career Behavior Checklist (PCBC; Keller & Whiston, 2008) consists of 23 items assessing participant’s perceptions of general parenting behaviors (Support scale) and career-specific parenting behaviors (Action scale). Respondents answer on 5-point Likert scale škále (1 = Never, 5 = Very Often). The scale has very good reliability (0.93). Note: Psychometric properties of Czech version of the CAAS and PCBS has been verified by authors. Standard general linear models in order to test hypotheses will be employed.

Although, CA represents a crucial ability for the school-to-work transition (Konstam, Celen-Demirtas, Tomek, & Sweeney, 2015), no Czech research undertaken so far has focused in detail on exploring the CA construct in youth graduating from vocational upper-secondary schools and influcence of the family processes on CA. Thus, the proposed research will bring empirically supported findings that will fill an existing gap in knowledge regarding the career development of Czech upper-secondary school graduates, especially CA development during the school-to-work transition period.

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