Abstract
This study examined influence of parental involvement on students’ career aspiration in public senior secondary schools in Rivers State. To achieve the purpose of the study, the researcher developed three objectives of the study, three research questions and three hypotheses that guided the conduct of the study. The research design used for the study was a descriptive survey design. The population of this study was 11,920 senior secondary II (SSII) students of all Public Secondary Schools in Rivers State for the 2024/2025 academic sessions. The sample size of the study was 400 students that was drawn from the three Rivers State Senatorial District. The multistage sampling technique was employed in the study. The instrument used for data collection was a self-structured questionnaire titled “Influence of Parental Involvement on Students’ Career Aspiration Questionnaire”. The instrument was rated using four-point rating scale. The data collected was analyzed using frequency table, weighted mean score and standard deviation for the research questions while the null hypotheses were tested using z-test statistical tool at a significant level of 0.05. Based on the data analysis, the finding of the study revealed that parental expectations, parents’ guidance support, parent-child relationship and over-parenting influence students’ career aspirations in public senior secondary schools in Rivers State. Based on the findings, the study recommends that: government, through the ministry of education should establish counselling unit in all the schools in the State to enable parents and students have access to counsel, government and non-governmental organization should organize seminar programmes for the parents and teachers on how to guide and support the students and school management should subject parents, teachers and students to counselling on how to improve parent-child relationship.