Striving for Educational and Career Goals During the Transition After High School: What is Beneficial?

Abstract

The present study takes a motivational perspective that views youths' educational and career engagement as influential and potentially competing for the same motivational resources in the transition to adulthood. We investigated whether motivational engagement with educational and career goals in the year after high-school graduation was differentially associated with educational, career-related and subjective well-being outcomes 2 and 4 years after school graduation. Our longitudinal study of a multi-ethnic sample of Los Angeles high-school graduates followed participants 2 years (N = 561; 61.5 % female) and 4 years (N = 364; 59.8 % female) after high school graduation. The findings indicate that motivational engagement with educational goals after high school graduation predicted educational attainments and psychological well-being at follow-up 2 and 4 years after graduation, and occupational progress at 4 years after graduation. Work hours assessed shortly after high school graduation were associated with poorer educational outcomes both at 2 and 4 years after high school. Occupational goal engagement was not associated with better outcomes, but predicted less educational attainment 4 years after graduating. Thus, educational goal engagement predicted favorable outcomes, whereas career-related goal engagement for the most part was neutral with some select associations with negative educational outcomes. A strong motivational commitment to educational goals, but not to career goals, is an important component of a successful transition to adulthood.

Individual and familial factors predict formation and improvement of adolescents’ academic expectations: A longitudinal study in Sweden

“…Higher own engagement in school has been found to be related to academic expectations in qualitative [37] and quantitative studies [38], to the point that expectations and engagement are sometimes measured as a single construct of "engagement with educational goals" [39]. Our findings support that engagement in school predicts a positive shift in academic expectations during this phase of adolescents.…”

Conceptualizing Individual Agency in the Transition from School to Work: A Social-Ecological Developmental Perspective

“…Here we focus on the role of individual agency, understood as a multi-dimensional construct. In particular, we focus on aspects of the value systems (intrinsic, extrinsic; costs; Eccles and Wigfield 2002; see for example education-career trade-offs in Heckhausen et al 2013), aspirations and expectations about goal controllability and one's self-efficacy to attain goals (Schoon and Lyons-Amos 2017;Schoon and Mortimer 2017), and about the consequences of goal attainment for other goals and life domains, goal commitment and engagement, volitional self-regulation Heckhausen 2012, 2016;, and the ability to adjust goals or even disengage from goals if needed (see Heckhausen and Wrosch 2016).…”

What we Know about Youth Employment: Research Summary and Best Practices

“…This can include migrating from one low paying job to another (Yates, 2005). A recent 4-year longitudinal study from the USA of motivational engagement with educational and career goals following high school graduation revealed the improved educational and enhanced psychological benefits of those motivated at both 2 and 4 years postgraduation and their increased job progress after 4 years (Heckhausen, Chang, Greenberger, & Chen, 2013). This study also revealed that those working longer hours shortly after graduation had poorer subsequent educational outcomes.…”