University of technology students are young emerging adults confronted with the critical vocational development task of identity exploration through study and career decision-making (Arnett, 2015; Doyle & O’Donnell, 2022). As such, young emerging adults (approximate age of 18 to 29 years: Arnett, 2015) inevitably engage in the exploration of study and career options that will promote their chances of pursuing a meaningful future working life and career path (Arnett, 2015; Arnett & Mitra, 2020; Doyle & O’Donnell, 2022; Ludwikowski et al., 2020). Furthermore, post-matric studies help emerging adults gain knowledge about the work world and occupational choices; they generally exhibit enough autonomy in deciding on future life paths. By valuing their independence, they seek out help and guidance to translate their self-concept into viable study and career interest preferences and choices (Arnett, 2015; Doyle & O’Donnell, 2022; Savickas, 2013).

Career interest assessments are generally used to support emerging adults who are actively engaged in the process of career-related decisions (Ludwikowski et al., 2020). Schein’s (1990, 1996) career orientations inventory (COI) is known to help undergraduate emerging adults develop deeper insight into the master career values that drive potential career interest preferences and choices (Coetzee, 2012; Coetzee & Schreuder, 2009; Matjie & Coetzee, 2018). The COI (Schein, 1990, 1996) identifies individuals’ master career values in the form of career anchors that depict individuals’ inner career orientations (Abessolo et al., 2017, 2021). Generally, work and life experiences throughout the lifespan help to crystallise the career self-concept with dominant career anchors starting to stabilise by the age of 30 years (Barclay et al., 2013). Individual career anchors continue to evolve over time depending upon the career stage, career transitions, and work-life context (Costigan et al., 2018; Rodrigues et al., 2013). The predominant inner career orientations reflected by individuals’ career anchors are characterised by master career values that pull them towards specific career choices and career path interests (Abessolo et al., 2021).

Emerging adults are at a life-stage during which they may be willing to accept responsibility for their choices and independently decide on their beliefs and values, which they optimistically express in their personal life choices (Doyle & O’Donnell, 2022). Being at an age of possibilities (Arnett, 2015), emerging adults’ inner career orientations and concomitant master career values may evolve over time; however, introspection on these by means of a COI assessment exercise may raise initial awareness of such master career values to help foster the crystallisation of the career self-concept (Coetzee et al., 2022).

However, before applying the COI (Schein, 1990) in career guidance, it is important to first assess whether the COI factor structure postulated by Schein (1990, 1996) holds true for the target audience. Empirical factor analyses on the COI have shown that the COI items may load on different career anchor factors yielding either more than eight career anchors or combinations of the career anchor factors resulting in fewer (or more) than eight career anchors in diverse sample-specific contexts (Coetzee & Schreuder, 2009; Costigan et al., 2018; Danziger et al., 2008; Erdoğmus, 2004; Lambert et al., 2020; Leong et al., 2014; Marshall & Bonner, 2003). Therefore, the study’s objective was, through an exploratory factor analysis (EFA) of the COI (Schein, 1990), to explore the inner career orientations that emerge for the sample of university of technology students who were identified for career guidance support. Uncovering the factor structure that emerged for the sample may not only extend research on the COI but also ensure a more reliable application of the COI in career guidance support interventions for university of technology students. Effective career guidance for emerging adults generally relies on psychometrically sound and target-audience relevant assessment instruments (Costigan et al., 2018).

The basic premise of Schein’s (1990, 1996) career anchors concept is that they reflect individuals’ inner (subjective) career orientations as a significant component of the career self-concept (Abessolo et al., 2017, 2021; Coetzee & Schreuder, 2009). Inner career orientations are supported by master career values that guide individuals’ career interest preferences and choices (Abessolo et al., 2017, 2021). Schein (1990, 1996) describes eight career anchors that each reflect a unique inner career orientation with its characteristic master career values: (1) technical and functional competence (TF), (2) general management (GM), (3) security and stability (SEC), (4) entrepreneurial creativity (EC), (5) pure challenge (PC), (6) autonomy and independence (AU), (7) service and dedication to a cause (SV), and (8) lifestyle (LS).

A TF career anchor reflects an orientation towards careers that allow the development of functional and expert skills. The core master values that drive the TF inner career orientation pertain to the need for expressing one’s talents and achieving expert status among peers (Coetzee, 2012; Feldman & Bolino, 2000). The inner career orientation of the GM career anchor reflects an aspiration for a position that facilitates the utilisation of managerial skills. The master values of the GM career orientation pertain to a self-perceived talent for solving organisation-wide problems and an aspiration for managerial authority in decision-making (Coetzee, 2012; Feldman & Bolino, 2000). Identifying new businesses, products or services and opportunities for creativity are predominant master values of the EC career orientation (i.e. expressing one’s talent in personal projects involving the creation of something new: Coetzee, 2012; Feldman & Bolino, 2000).

Needs-based master values pertain to the SEC, AU and LS career anchors. The SEC inner career orientation towards job security is driven by the valuing of the financial security and benefits offered by long-term employment. The AU career orientation is a need to be free of organisational constraints in the pursuit of professional competence. Exercising personal freedom in choices of job content and settings are some of the master values reflected in the AU career orientation (Coetzee, 2012; Feldman & Bolino, 2000). The master values of the LS career anchor are reflected in the desire for careers that promote the coherent balancing of work commitments with personal and family welfare (Coetzee, 2012; Feldman & Bolino, 2000).

The pure-challenge (PC) and service and dedication to a cause (SV) career anchors relate to the expression of personal (intrinsic) skills and values (Feldman & Bolino, 2000). The PC career orientation reflects the aspiration for a career that allows the testing of one’s abilities in solving single-handedly a variety of challenging, complex problems. The master values of the PC career orientation are reflected in the desire for risky, challenging and competitive work projects that test one’s personal endurance and problem-solving capability (Coetzee, 2012; Feldman & Bolino, 2000). The SV career orientation reflects the desire for jobs in which personal skills and values can be applied towards helping society and make the world a better place to live in. The SV career orientation is supported by the master value of working for the greater good of organisations and communities (Coetzee, 2012; Feldman & Bolino, 2000).

Empirical research on the commonality of master values embedded within the COI career anchors highlights values of achievement reflected within the AU, PC and LS career orientations; values of power within the AU, PC, EC, SEC and TF career orientations; values of conformity within the SEC and SV career orientations, values of hedonism within the AU, PC, EC, GM and TF career orientations; and values of tradition within the SEC career orientation. The AU, PC, EC and TF career orientations were also associated with values of self-directedness (Abessolo et al., 2017). Exploratory factor analyses on the COI (Schein, 1990) provide evidence of the EC career anchor including two separate career orientations, namely that of creativity (i.e. enjoyment of creating new products or services) and entrepreneurship (i.e. setting up a new business: Costigan et al., 2018; Danziger et al., 2008; Marshall & Bonner, 2003).

Other exploratory factor analyses studies revealed combinations of COI career anchors into a new type of career orientation. For example, Erdoğmus (2004) and Coetzee and Schreuder (2009) discovered a combination of GM and PC items loading onto a single factor. Coetzee and Schreuder (2009) found a combination of GM and EC items loading onto a single career anchor factor. Lifestyle and autonomy items also loaded onto a single career anchor factor (Coetzee & Schreuder, 2009). The divergent research findings on the factor structure of the COI (Schein, 1990) suggest that the meanings attached to career orientations may be sample-specific and context dependent. People’s master career values may further combine to form a combination of career orientations denoted by Schein’s (1990) career anchors (Coetzee & Schreuder, 2009; Cortés-Sanchez & Grueso-Hinestroza, 2017; Costigan et al., 2018). This phenomenon led to the following research question:

What are the inner career orientations of university of technology students as denoted by the EFA of the COI?

Table 1 summarises the final four career anchors that emerged for the sample of participants. The Kaiser–Meyer–Olkin (KMO) measure of sampling adequacy was 0.93 (Bartlett’s test of sphericity: p = 0.000) and thus above the recommended threshold value of 0.60 for adequate common variance among items in factor analysis (Kaiser, 1970). The PCA revealed the presence of eight components with eigenvalues exceeding one. The scree plot revealed a clear break after the fourth component. The first four factor components accounted for 30.33%, 7.79%, 4.01% and 3.79% of the variance, respectively, cumulatively 45.92%. The remaining four components accounted cumulatively for only 11.57% (3.24%; 2.98%; 2.81%; 2.54%) of the variance.

The rotated component matrix was then inspected to retain item loadings of ≥0.50. Items loaded mostly onto the first four components. The remaining four components had numerous item cross-loadings with the first four components with the loadings being lower than 0.50. Each of the four remaining components had only one or two items with loadings more than 0.50. Drawing from the guidelines of Tabachnick and Fidell (2013) and Lambert et al. (2020), the decision was to retain only the first four factors because of the researchers’ assessment of their interpretability and utility.

Table 1 shows that factor one (five items) included two EC items, two PC items and one TF competence item from the original COI (Schein, 1990) factor structure. Inspection of the items suggested the use of specialised skills to solve challenging problems in the building of one’s own products or ideas. Factor one was labelled as specialised creativity and problem solving.

As shown in Table 1, the second factor (labelled as general managerial autonomy: five items) included three (AU) items and two GM items from the original COI (Schein, 1990) factor structure. The combination of items suggested autonomy and freedom in a general managerial role. The third factor retained four items of the original COI (Schein, 1990) factor structure for the SEC. The combination of items suggested a strong focus on financial and employment security and stability. The fourth factor (labelled as entrepreneurship) retained three items of the original COI (Schein, 1990) EC anchor. The combination of items suggested a strong focus on creating one’s own business or enterprise.

In Table 2, the four career orientations that emerged from the EFA had, for large group research purposes (Hair et al., 2019), acceptable (entrepreneurship: 0.55) to high internal consistency reliability (>0.70). The composite reliabilities (CR) for construct or factor-level reliability was high for all four factors (>0.70). The bivariate correlations among the four factors were positive and significant (r ≥ 0.39 to r ≤ 0.55). All four factors correlated positively and significantly with the overall career anchors construct (r ≥ 0.69 to r ≤ 0.82). Participants scored the highest on security and stability (mean [M] = 4.99; SD = 0.97) and specialised creativity and problem solving (M = 4.97; SD = 0.99). Participants scored the lowest on general managerial autonomy (M = 4.20; SD = 1.29).

Table 2 and Table 3 show evidence of acceptable convergent validity (Hair et al., 2019) with CR coefficients of >0.70 and the average variance extracted (AVE) estimates either close to 0.50 (general managerial autonomy and security and stability) or >0.50 (specialised creativity and problem-solving and entrepreneurship). Table 3 shows acceptable discriminant validity among the factors (except for security and stability [SIC = 0.57] with the AVE estimates being greater than the squared inter-construct correlations [SIC]). All the inter-construct correlations were less than 0.90, which indicated that multicollinearity did not pose a threat to the findings (Hair et al., 2019). The Harman’s single factor test further revealed that the four factors explained only 28% of the variance, which indicated that common method variance was not a major problem in the data.

Given the importance of career guidance to university of technology students, the study focused on uncovering the inner career orientations relevant to the sample of participants in support of their vocational development. The results corroborated research evidence of the COI (Schein, 1990, 1996) yielding different combinations of career anchors that depict inner career orientations relevant to the sample (Coetzee & Schreuder, 2009; Cortéz-Sanchez & Grueso-Hinestroza, 2017; Costigan et al., 2018; Danziger et al., 2008; Marshall & Bonner, 2003).

The results elicited three main outcomes to consider in the career guidance of the sample of university of technology students. The first of these pertains to the security and stability (highest mean score) career orientation that signals a need for long-term, steady employment in organisational settings that offer financial and employment security (Schein, 1990). The security and stability career orientation reflects extrinsic-oriented master career values alluding to jobs that offer long-term job security and financial rewards and benefits (Coetzee, 2021). In this regard, Ackerman and Kanfer (2020) argue that young emerging adults place a high premium on the financial and career rewards associated with steady employment because they are at a stage of establishing an independent, viable livelihood.

The second outcome pertains to the separate themes of creativity and entrepreneurship associated with the EC career anchor (Costigan et al., 2018; Marshall & Bonner, 2003). Marshall and Bonner (2003) and Danziger et al. (2008) also observed in their COI EFA studies the split between the creativity and entrepreneurship aspects of the EC career anchor. In this study, the career orientation items of specialised creativity and problem solving (the second highest mean score) corroborate empirical research pointing to the desire to draw upon the application of specialised skills and talents in order to solve challenging problems in creative, entrepreneurial pursuits. Research by Lambert et al. (2020) shows that some individuals may aspire to careers that support a blend of motives and values associated with EC, pure challenge, and TF competence. In this study, the participants further seemed to embrace entrepreneurship (the third highest mean score) as a separate career orientation in the desire to create their own business or enterprise. This finding supports Schein’s (1978, 1990) original conception of EC as an aspiration towards self-employment. The technical specialisation, pure challenge and EC career orientations further seem to be prevalent among African emerging adults (17 to 28 years: Arnett, 2015; Matjie & Coetzee, 2018).

The third outcome for career guidance is the career orientation that captured a mix of the autonomy and independence and GM career anchors (Schein, 1990) which, in the present study, appeared to be centred on the need for autonomous working and the personal freedom that a managerial role may bring in terms of job content and position. In the present study, both the career orientations of specialised creativity and problem solving and general managerial autonomy (lowest mean score) reflect intrinsic-oriented master career values of self-expression (i.e. jobs that require creativity and innovation while giving one the freedom and position of power to set one’s own goals and schedule as sources of career satisfaction: Coetzee, 2021).

Overall, the findings of the study extended research on the COI (Schein, 1990) and provided new insights into the inner career orientations of black African emerging adults. Considering the master career values of inner career orientations is critical for satisfying, congruent career choices and decision-making when providing career guidance to university of technology students. Although the COI (Schein, 1990) is a proven useful, reliable career assessment instrument, the study’s findings highlighted the importance of first establishing the underlying factor structure of the COI relevant to the sample context. Such an approach may yield more reliable, congruent, and useful career guidance information to the specific group of emerging adults.