Gender Differences on Career Maturity: A Meta-Analysis Study

The aim of this study is to examine gender differences in career maturity by meta-analysis method. For this purpose, graduate theses and articles on career maturity studied in Turkey between the years 2000-2017 were examined. The National Thesis Center of the Council of Higher Education was used to examine the theses and ULAKB？M National Database was used to examine scientific articles. The sample of this study consisted of 17 studies including data on gender variable and coding protocol. The sample of the study consisted of 9133 participants, 4538 (49.7%) female and 4595 (50.3%) male. The effect size of career maturity by gender was determined using the Standardized Mean Difference (SMD) analysis method known as Cohen d. To determine the publication bias, the results of Rosenthal's FSN Number, Duval and Tweedie's Trim and Fill method, Egger test and Funnel Graph were examined and it was seen that there was no publication bias in the meta-analysis. Besides, sub-group analysis was performed to determine how meta-analysis results vary according to different sample groups (high school and secondary school students). A heterogeneous distribution was found in the studies (Q = 40.824 p = 0.001, I2 = 60.807). According to the random effects model, the results showed a significant and small effect (d = 0.303, [0,234; 0,371], p = 0,000). In addition, the results of the subgroup analysis showed that the effect size calculated according to gender was significantly different from the school level