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Les stages en entreprise pour les jeunes de collège se généralisent. L'étude des effets de cette activité sur certaines dimensions psychologiques des jeunes concernés a fait l'objet d'une recherche menée conjointement par l'Institut National de Recherche Pédagogique (INRP) et par l'Institut National d'Études du Travail et d'Orientation Professionnelle (INETOP). Ainsi, bien que les stages soient perçus de manière très positive par les jeunes qui y participent, une approche globale montre cependant la faiblesse de leurs effets sur les dimensions que sont la maturité « vocationnelle », la motivation scolaire, l'anxiété et les intérêts. Une approche différenciée permet par ailleurs d'identifier un certain nombre de conditions potentielles d'apparition d'effets et d'amplification de ces effets.

This article examines two questions of research. Can we make educational and vocational information sessions effective by applying commitment theory (Kiesler, 1971) to this particular aspect of career counseling? Does commitment as part of an initial low-cost behavior (taking part in an information session) have a direct effect or is the effect a mediate one? Data gathered during an experiment involving six sixth-year secondary school classes would appear to suggest that there is a mediate process. To be more precise, the accepted impact of commitment upon the effectiveness of information sessions (postsession information and orientation is more actively sought) would seem to be linked to its mediation by perceived self-efficacy (Bandura, 1997(Bandura, /2003 in orientation. On the other hand, it is not mediated by the behavioral intention (Fishbein, 1980) to take such steps, this being an intention upon which commitment has no effect. The discussion links these results to some of Kiesler's initial questions (commitment as a process of internal self-attribution), and also places them within the framework (proper to counseling) of factors common to all intervention theories and techniques designed to explain the effectiveness of said interventions.Works based on commitment theory (Joule & Beauvois, 1998;Kiesler, 1971) examine the impact of commitment to an initial behavior upon the accomplishment of a second more costly behavior. Whilst most experimental works have used a procedure in which real social life does not play a major role, some nevertheless took place within a virtually experimental framework of institutionalised social situations such as counseling or professional training. These form part of the obvious utility of commitment in applications (Joule, 2001).

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