ABSTRACT
The study examined the influence of age, sex, school location and motivation for occupational preference among senior secondary school students in AkwaIbom state. The sample for the study consisted of 369 drawn from fourteen (14) senior secondary schools (7 schools were located in the Urban Area, while another 7 in the rural area). The sampled size was randomly selected from a population of 9000 students. A standard instrument called motivation for occupational preference scale was used for data collection. The instrument has four variables (external influence, extrinsic reward, self-expression and people-oriented value) as motivations for occupation. The independent variables of age, sex and school location were used to test their influence on each of the motivations for occupational preference variable mentioned above. The ex-post facto design was used as a research design. The twelve (12) null hypotheses formulated were tested at 0.05 level of significance. Analysis of Variable (ANOVA) was used in testing hypotheses 1, 2, 3 and 4, while independent t-test was used in testing hypotheses 5-12. The result showed that all the null hypotheses were retained. It was found that age, gender and school location had no significant influence on motivation for occupational preference. On the basis of the finding, it was recommended that existing guidance and counseling centres in school should organize career oriented programme towards motivating students to appropriate occupations relevant to their abilities and interest.