Career Perception, Teaching Efficacy, and Career Decision and Preparation among Undergraduate Pre-service Korean Language Teachers

This study examined the relationships among career perception, teaching efficacy, and career decision and preparation among undergraduate pre-service Korean language teachers.Participants were 67 undergraduates enrolled in or preparing for Korean language education careers at a university in Gyeongsangnam-do, Korea.Career perception was defined as a self-reported orientation encompassing occupational preference, perceived competence, professional growth, and teacher-role expectations; career decision and preparation combined decision and certainty with information seeking, career planning, and certification preparation.Data were analyzed using descriptive statistics, reliability analysis, Pearson correlations, HC3 robust regressions, group comparisons, sensitivity analysis, and unrotated principal component analysis to address common method bias.Career perception was positively correlated with teaching efficacy (r=.668) and career decision and preparation (r=.746), while teaching efficacy was correlated with career decision and preparation (r=.490).In the multiple regression, career perception remained significant (B=1.180,p<.001), whereas teaching efficacy showed no unique association (B=-.017,p=.903).The unique explained variance was 31.7% for career perception and approximately 0.01% for teaching efficacy.After removing conceptually overlapping items, the findings remained unchanged.The first unrotated component explained 50.28% of the variance, so we could not rule out common method bias.The findings indicate statistical associations rather than causal effects and support career guidance that links occupational understanding with concrete planning and reflective opportunities in undergraduate Korean language teacher education.