Longitudinal correlates of changes in educational expectations during the transition to adulthood.

For several decades there has been a gap between adolescents' expectations of the amount of education they will receive and their actual educational attainment as young adults. In three studies, this dissertation examines factors external to the individual that may interfere with or support late adolescents' educational expectations and plans. The first two studies utilize data from the Monitoring the Future Project, a NIDA-funded national panel of high school seniors who are followed longitudinally into young and middle adulthood. The first study used logistic regressions and person-centered analyses to demonstrate that transition events (i.e., employment, financial independence, marriage, and parenthood) during young adulthood are related to lower graduation rates among individuals who had previously expected to graduate from a two-year college, graduate from a four-year college, or attend graduate school. The second study extended the findings of the first study by examining changes in educational expectations over the first ten years after high school. Two growth curve models revealed that transition events during young adulthood are related to differential levels of educational attainment expectations at age 22. In terms of change over time, transitions were related to changes in expectations to graduate from college, but not to changes in individuals' expectations for the amount of postsecondary education they would receive. The third study relied on qualitative data from a subset of participants in the Maryland Adolescent Development in Context Study. Interviews were conducted when participants were approximately 19 years old; qualitative coding focused on supports for meeting educational and occupational goals and risk factors for not meeting these goals. Fit between self and school or work contexts, fit between multiple goals, social support, and self-regulatory strategies were all factors that participants identified as helping them reach their goals, but each of these sources of support could also be a risk factor when there was misfit, a lack of support, or poor self-regulation. Results of all three studies suggest that adolescents and young adults are generally optimistic about their chances of meeting their goals, perhaps unrealistically so. Discussion centers around motivational and lifespan development theories.PhDEducationEducational psychologyUniversity of Michigan, Horace H. Rackham School of Graduate Studieshttp://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/126776/2/3276245.pd