Perceived academic and socioeconomic factors influencing career choice among students at public universities in Peru

Yanira Flores-Quispe M.; Elizabeth Huanchi-Mamani L.; Rimachi-Jimenez F.; Manuel Yanarico-Coaquira V.; Jonas Ticona-Hancco H.; Ticona-Choque A.; Quiñonez-Choquecota J. · Proceedings of the LACCEI international Multi-conference for Engineering, Education and Technology (2026) · DOI: 10.18687/laccei2026.1.1.2590

Resumen

The objective of this study was to determine the perceived academic and socioeconomic factors influencing the choice of a professional career among students from public universities in the Puno region of Peru. The sample consisted of 317 students from two public universities in the region, and data were collected using a structured questionnaire comprising two main sections: academic factors, assessed through students' preferences and perceived difficulty in secondary school subjects such as Mathematics, Language Arts, Physics, Chemistry, Biology, and Social Sciences, and socioeconomic factors. The data were analyzed using descriptive statistics, including frequencies, percentages, and cross-tabulations. The results indicate that students tend to choose careers whose core subjects align with those they preferred and perceived as having low to moderate difficulty during secondary education, while avoiding careers in which highly difficult subjects are central. Furthermore, the findings reveal that career choice is a complex, multifactorial, yet hierarchical process, in which personal vocation emerges as the primary determining factor, followed by family influence, suggesting that vocational decisions are constructed from an intrinsic axis (preference and identity) upon which external pressures and support from the immediate environment are superimposed.

Instituciones: Universidad Nacional del Altiplano; Universidad Nacional de Juliaca