Career choice in engineering students: its relationship with motivation, satisfaction and the development of professional plans

Choosing a university degree is a relevant process for the personal, social and economic development. This study was designed to explore the students' choice for technical degrees. It is centered on the relationship between the quality of their choice and their motivation, satisfaction and development of professional plans. The inquiry involved an incidental sample of 89 students from the Universidad Politécnica de Madrid (UPM) in Architecture, Computer Sciences and Forestry Engineering. After the analysis of the ad hoc adapted inventory, descriptive data and the results concerning dependence between the variables considered (analyzed with Pearson's chi-squared test) are presented. Non-parametric tests were used to asses differences on satisfaction by gender and degree studied. Results show dependence between the students' motivation and satisfaction, and the later and their professional plans' content. Gender and degree are also dependent with professional plans' temporality, as well as degree with their structure. No significant differences were found for the means in satisfaction.