Career-related parental behaviors, adolescents’ consideration of future consequences, and career adaptability: A three-wave longitudinal study.

Abstract

Career adaptability is a critical psychological resource for adolescents during their transition from secondary to postsecondary education. Based on prospective data from 451 Chinese adolescents (M ϭ 16.87, SD ϭ 0.63; 46.3% female), this study examined the mediating role of adolescents' consideration of future consequences (CFCS) in the association between career-related parental behaviors and adolescents' career adaptability. Results demonstrated that career-related parental support at Wave 1 was associated positively with adolescents' career adaptability and its subdimensions (i.e., career concern, control, curiosity, and confidence) at Wave 3 (i.e., 10 months later). Adolescents' CFCS at Wave 2 (i.e., 5 months later after Wave 1) served as a mediator linking career-related parental support at Wave 1 and career concern, control, and curiosity, but not confidence at Wave 3. Neither parental lack of engagement nor interference at Wave 1 predicted adolescents' career adaptability at Wave 3. These results suggest that interventions assisting parents in performing supportive behaviors, such as engaging in adolescents' career exploration activities and offering information about various kinds of jobs, might be useful strategies to foster adolescents' curiosity and confidence in choosing future career paths. Additionally, counselors and parents may offer adolescents strategies to strengthen their abilities to consider the potential influences of their current behaviors on future career paths (e.g., prioritizing behaviors and activities related to their future career paths over activities that only provide immediate or short-term gratification) to promote their capabilities of coping with challenges during the career transition period.

Adolescents’ Family Socioeconomic Status, Teacher–Student Interactions, and Career Ambivalence/Adaptability: A Three-Wave Longitudinal Study

“…The identified mediating role of teacher–student relationship quality in the association between family SES and adolescents’ career ambivalence is consistent with propositions from the general Family Investment Model (FIM; Conger & Donnellan, 2007), the Family Stress Model (FSM; Masarik & Conger, 2017), and the specific Lent et al’s (2000) SSCT. Family economic status is associated with the amount and quality of resources that parents are able to invest in either parenting processes/parent–child relationship or learning materials to their children (Liang et al, 2020). Adolescents tend to perceive a sense of uncertainty and threat in terms of their future careers (e.g., competing for limited college entrance and job vacancies) and thus they have to learn to allocate their resources to meet their respective needs (Melloy et al, 2018).…”

“…Participants were asked to rate the items on a 5-point scale from 1 (“ Definitely not like me ”) to 5 (“ Very much like me ”). The scale had good reliability and validity in Chinese samples (Liang et al, 2020). In the current study, factor loadings of the indicators ( rs = .62 to .86) were between .77 to .96 at W1 and W3.…”

“…The identified mediating role of teacher-student relationship quality in the association between family SES and adolescents' career ambivalence is consistent with propositions from the general Family Investment Model (FIM; Conger & Donnellan, 2007), the Family Stress Model (FSM; Masarik & Conger, 2017), and the specific Lent et al's (2000) SSCT. Family economic status is associated with the amount and quality of resources that parents are able to invest in either parenting processes/parent-child relationship or learning materials to their children (Liang et al, 2020).…”

The influence of motivation, self-efficacy, and fear of failure on the career adaptability of vocational school students: Moderated by meaning in life

“…Regarding CA, past studies have focused on general company employees ( AlKhemeiri et al, 2020 ; Omar and Tajudeen, 2020 ; Wang et al, 2021 ), student veterans or veterans ( Ghosh and Fouad, 2018 ; Ghosh et al, 2019 ; Becker et al, 2022 ), college students ( Gregor et al, 2021 ; Hu et al, 2021 ; Kim and Smith, 2021 ), high school students ( Dostanić et al, 2021 ), adolescent groups ( Liang et al, 2020 ; Bacanli and Sarsikoğlu, 2021 ), and working women ( Takawira, 2020 ), and have revealed that the target population is very diverse and represents the importance of research on CA.…”

“…In the past, most of these studies focused on students’ parental behaviors, expectations of students, and caring support ( Liang et al, 2020 ; Parola and Marcionetti, 2021 ; Nikander et al, 2022 ). External variables, or students’ internal personality traits and active personality ( Bacanli and Sarsikoğlu, 2021 ; Hu et al, 2021 ; Chang and Liu, 2022 ) have been less frequently explored in terms of MT, SE, and other intrinsic subjective drivers that are at the core of a person’s being from a self-deterministic perspective.…”