Assessment of Occupational Aspirations of Students with Disabilities in Integrated Secondary Schools in Southwest, Nigeria

This study assessed occupational aspirations of students with disabilities in integrated secondary schools in Southwest, Nigeria. The descriptive research design of the survey type was used in this study. The population consisted of all 1,106 students with disabilities in integrated public secondary schools in Southwest, Nigeria. The sample for this study consisted of 349 students with disabilities from 12 integrated public secondary schools in Southwest, Nigeria. The sample was selected via multi stage sampling procedure. An instrument tagged “Occupational Aspiration Questionnaire (OAQ)” was used to collect relevant data for the study from the respondents. The validity of the instrument was ensured through face, content and construct validity. Convergent construct validity between MOPS (standardized instrument) and OAQ yielded r= 0.859. The data collected from the questionnaire were analyzed using descriptive and inferential statistics. The findings of the study revealed that students with disabilities have highest preference for business based occupation, closely followed by art/humanity based occupation and science based occupation while the least preference was technology based occupation. It was also revealed that the occupational aspirations of students with disabilities in integrated secondary schools differ. In addition, occupational aspirations of integrated secondary school students with disabilities do not differ based on their gender and religion. It was recommended among others that the government should create a department that will provide career guidance for students with disabilities.

Keywords: Occupational Aspirations, Disabilities, Integrated Schools,