Helping Rural Adolescents Make Successful Postsecondary Transitions: A Longitudinal Study

Richard T. Lapan, Ph.D., is with the University of Massachusetts-Amherst. E-mail: lapan@ educ.umass.edu Mark Aoyagi, Ph.D., and Marc Kayson, M.A., are with the University of MissouriColumbia.

Helping Rural Adolescents Make Successful Postsecondary Transitions: A Longitudinal Study The longitudinal study in this article tested whether advantages in the career development of high school seniors resulted in better transition outcomes for these young adults 3 years after they graduated from high school. Enhanced career development in high school was significantly connected to more successful transitions into the adult roles of worker and learner and to greater satisfaction with one’s life. Providing consistent and competent career development services to all students in high school is an essential task for professional school counselors. elping students make successful postsecondary transitions is one of the most fundamental tasks undertaken by professional school counselors. Recognition of the importance of this challenge starts from the beginning of our profession, runs through federal legislation such as the School-toWork Opportunities Act of 1994 (STWOA), and is clearly articulated in the ASCA National Model® (American School Counselor Association, 2005). Early pioneers fighting to establish the legitimacy and value of our profession argued that the work school counselors did with adolescents while they were in high school made a significant difference in helping them attain better outcomes in young adulthood. For example, Caravello’s (1958) longitudinal study found that 1 year after graduating from high school, young adults who had received assistance from a full-time school counselor were more likely to have developed career goals earlier in high school and were continuing with their post-high school education and formal vocational training. Rothney’s (1958) classic longitudinal study of high school seniors 5 years after leaving high school found that those students who received school counseling services while in high school (a) did slightly better academically; (b) were more consistent in expressing a vocational choice, were more likely to enter a career related to that choice, and remained longer in that career area after leaving high school; (c) were more likely to both enter and graduate from a postsecondary educational training program; and (d) were

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more satisfied with their lives 5 years after graduating from high school. These outcomes are at the heart of the goals expressed in important legislative efforts and represent a professional commitment now firmly embedded in our professional standards. The present study continues in this tradition. It reports the results of a 3-year longitudinal study of high school seniors from rural settings in a Midwestern state. As high school seniors, these students participated in a school-to-career study (Lapan, Tucker, Kim, & Kosciulek, 2003). This study evaluated the impact of career development curricular strategies outlined by STWOA, plus the impact of these adolescents receiving emotional and instrumental support regarding preparation to make successful post-high school transitions. The components of the intervention consisted of (a) the organization of classes around a career goal (organized curriculum); (b) teaching instruction that demonstrates to students the relevance of course content to the world of work (relevant curriculum); (c) workbased learning experiences; and (d) connected learning activities (e.g., identifying career interests, career planning activities around six broad career paths, an emphasis on the formation of initial career choice goals, searches for jobs, and the identification of appropriate postsecondary educational and training options). Emotional/instrumental support for students from the following stakeholders also was studied: (a) school counselors, (b) teachers, and (c) multiple stakeholders (i.e., a global rating of overall support from eight different sources, including parents). Prior to the initial study being conducted, the state’s STWOA management team identified 17 partnerships that met criteria for being designated as rural, and that had been funded to implement curriculum strategies and support services as stipulated in the STWOA. Nine of these 17 rural partnerships agreed to participate in the study. Students were matched by academic achievement level, age, and sex. Two hundred fifty 12th-grade students completed the follow-up surveys. For these students, satisfaction with their school

experience and higher aspirations to pursue postsecondary education and training were strongly related to the six multidimensional skills identified in the Integrative/Contextual Model of Career Development (ICM; Lapan, 2004; Lapan & Kosciulek, 2001). Drawing on existing theory and research, ICM outlines how adolescents can become planful, adaptive (Savickas, 1999), proactive (Claes & RuizQuintanilla, 1998), and more resilient in their postsecondary transition process if they develop and express these six skills. The skills are (a) develop positive self-efficacy expectations, outcome expectations, and career-enhancing attributions (Lent, Brown, & Hackett, 1994; Luzzo & Jenkins-Smith, 1998); (b) explore their options and develop personally meaningful goals (Flum & Blustein, 2000; Robbins & Kliewer, 2000); (c) enhance the perceived fit between themselves and the world of work (Swanson & Fouad, 1999); (d) integrate work readiness behaviors and prosocial skills into their everyday actions (Bloch, 1996); (e) identify career paths of interest to them (Strong, 1943); and (f) become successful students and self-regulated, lifelong learners (Lapan, Kardash, & Turner, 2002). Based on the end-of-the-year survey given to high school seniors (Lapan et al., 2003), students who were more fully integrating the ICM skills into how they were approaching their impending high school graduation and subsequent life transitions were more likely to feel satisfied with their educational experiences and to report that they wanted to enter postsecondary education or training. Although these patterns were evident in 12th grade, it was not possible in the initial study to estimate the impact of this skill development on the actual experiences of the students once they left high school.

PURPOSE OF THE CURRENT STUDY Thus, the purpose of this current study was to conduct a longitudinal investigation of the impact of the STWOA-based interventions on educational and career outcomes 3 years subsequent to graduation. It was predicted that 3 years after graduating from high school, students who had been able to develop more fully the skills identified by the ICM model while in high school would achieve greater success in young adulthood. High school seniors who had developed these skills were expected to (a) find greater success in transitioning to age-appropriate roles of worker and adult learner, and (b) report greater satisfaction with the quality of their lives. We estimated a structural equation model to test the predictive validity of these hypotheses.

METHOD Participants As part of the consent process for the initial study (Lapan et al., 2003), students were asked to include contact information that could be utilized by the principal investigator for a future follow-up study. This contact information was used to telephone participants from the original study and request their consent to participate in a follow-up study. This process resulted in 87 young adults (60 women and 27 men, mean age = 21.31, SD = .58) who completed the follow-up surveys. As in the original sample, the follow-up sample was largely Caucasian (99%). All participants in this current study were read an informed consent statement over the phone. Each gave his or her verbal consent to participate. In addition, participants in the current study were paid for their participation and were treated in accordance with existing professional standards pertaining to research with human subjects. Instruments Used to Collect Data When Participants Were 12th Graders Although a number of variables were examined in the original study, only two that were shown to be most highly related to critical aspects of 12th-grade students’ career development were chosen for this current study due to the number of participants contacted for post-high school follow-up. The variables chosen were curriculum strategies (i.e., organizing high school courses around a career goal) and perceived support. These, along with the career development variable, are summarized below. Curriculum strategies. Three behaviorally specific Yes/No items (i.e., “My high school course of study has been organized around a career goal that is important to me”) were used to ask students if their high school courses were organized around a career goal that was meaningful and important to them. A total scale score for each student was calculated across these items and used as a variable in subsequent regression analyses. Perceived support. This measured three types of support: counselor support, teacher support, and overall support (i.e., parents, mentors, friends, relatives, family friends, and business or trade union representatives). Using a 5-point Likert scale (1 = not helpful, 5 = very helpful; 1 = not encouraging, 5 = very encouraging), participants were asked to rate how helpful each of these groups had been to them in doing a range of educational and career exploration activities. Example items were “School counselors have been helpful in talking to me about what goes on in the workplace for a wide range of careers” and “Teachers have been helpful in talking to me about opportunities to explore careers in high

Helping students make successful postsecondary transitions is one of the most fundamental tasks undertaken by professional school counselors.

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It was predicted that 3 years after graduating from high school, adolescents who had more fully developed key school-to-career skills would have experienced measurable advantages.

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school.” A sample question was “How supportive and encouraging are your parents in helping you to become aware of and explore education, training, and employment options after you leave high school?” A total scale score for each student was calculated across these items. Career development. This was the composite variable used in the Lapan et al. (2003) study to measure the combined impact of the six constructs identified in the integrative/contextual model of career development (Lapan, 2004). This variable combined the six important features of adolescent career development (i.e., academic achievement, positive expectations, goals and exploratory actions, work readiness behaviors and prosocial skills, person-environment fit, and interests). To obtain an overall score, individual students’ raw scores on each of these six constructs were transformed into z scores and then summed. Thus, each of the six constructs contributed equally in determining the value representing the student’s overall level of career development. For further information on scaling procedures and internal consistency estimates from the previous study, see Lapan et al., 2003. Instruments Used to Collect Data After Students Were 3 Years Out of High School Learner role. The learner role variable was created from young adults’ responses when asked about their participation in postsecondary education and training since leaving high school (i.e., 2-year community college, 4-year university program, apprenticeship programs, vocational school, service in the military, and/or working in a job). The variable was scored on a 6-point scale as follows: 1 = working in a job, 2 = serving in the military, 3 = enrolled in/graduated from an apprenticeship program, 4 = enrolled in/graduated from a vocational school, 5 = enrolled in/graduated from a 2-year community college, and 6 = enrolled in a 4-year university program. If these young adults responded that they were involved in more than one of these activities, they were given the score of the highest educational/training activity they were involved in (e.g., if an individual was working in a job and enrolled in a 4year university, he or she would receive a score of 6). Quality of life. All participants responded to the following question: “Right now, how satisfied are you with the overall quality of your life (i.e., your sense of personal well-being and happiness)?” Participants responded on a 5-point Likert scale (1 = not satisfied, 5 = very satisfied). Prior research has found that overall quality-of-life judgments are reliable and predictive measures of life satisfaction (e.g., Kosciulek, 1999). Worker role. Three measures (time, proactivity, and stabilized career path) were used to estimate the

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success by which a young adult was transitioning into the worker role. Time was a measure of a positive time perspective (Marko & Savickas, 1998); these authors have argued that a positive time perspective is an important factor in a young adult’s successful progression into the role of adult worker. Using Marko and Savickas’s scale, we measured young adults’ perspectives on time with 20 items (e.g., “I move in an orderly way toward goals set long ahead of time”) scored on a 7-point Likert scale (1 = not at all like me, 7 = very accurate description of me). Scores were summed across the 20 items resulting in a mean of the summed scores. Proactivity (e.g., planning ahead and setting goals in one’s immediate work environment, getting along with coworkers and supervisors, developing skills relevant to success in current job tasks, and advice seeking and networking behaviors) has been identified as an important variable predictive of early job success, tenure, and satisfaction (Claes & RuizQuintanilla, 1998). For this current study, we adapted items suggested by Claes and Ruiz-Quintanilla and asked these young adults to rate the extent to which they were being proactive in their current work, training, or educational setting. Eleven items were used (e.g., “I have developed skills that help me now and are likely to be useful to me in future positions”) and scored on a 5-point Likert scale (1 = not at all, 5 = a great deal). Scores were summed across the 11 items. A stabilized career path was identified by Super (1981) as an important marker of the success by which a young person effectively transitions into the worker role. Participants were asked nine questions assessing their current satisfaction, hopefulness, and confidence regarding their career paths (e.g., “How satisfied are you with your current educational and career situation?” and “To what extent do you have a well-defined career plan that you are committed to?”). Responses were scored on a 5-point Likert scale with high scores indicating that the young adults were finding greater success transitioning into a meaningful career path that brought them satisfaction, and that they were not thinking of moving away into a different field.

RESULTS Preliminary Analyses Prior to analysis, all variables were screened for accuracy of data, outliers, multivariate outliers, normality, and missing values. All values appeared to be reasonable and there were no univariate or multivariate outliers. The quality-of-life variable had a high kurtosis value (3.79); however, as it is a single item measure and a key variable in the study, the researchers judged that it was an adequate measure

Table 1. Means, Standard Deviations, and Correlations Between Variables 1

2

3

4

5

7.49

3.61

2.76

3.32

2.44

SD 1.58

.84

1.08

1.01

1.30

M

1. Oc

–

2. As

.28**

3. Cs

.10

.48**

–

4. Ts

.11

.54**

.36**

5. Gr

–.16

6

7

8

9

.16

4.22

4.33

45.64

.89

2.20

.72

7.09

10

11

37.45 108.15 4.93

16.0

–

–.10 .54**

–.20

6. Cd

.46**

7. Lr

.01

8. Ql

.31**

.26*

.11

9. Pr

.13

.17

10. C

.25*

11. T N

–.05

–

–.49**

.16

.23*

–.25*

.36**

.03

.25*

.14

–.10

.06

.03

.29**

.19

.21

.07

–.18

.18

.26*

.36**

.62**

–

.10

.13

.15

.00

–.17

.21*

.18

.41**

.48**

.50**

87

87

87

87

87

87

87

87

87

–.04

.45**

– .35**

–.01

.28**

–

–.15

– – –

More consistency

87

–

needs to become

87

evident for all

Note. Oc = organized curriculum; As = all support; Cs = counselor support; Ts = teacher support; Gr = grades; Cd = career development; Lr = learner; Ql = quality of life; Pr = proactivity; C = stabilized career path; T = time; N = sample size. * p < .05. ** p < .01.

students in terms of the quality of the career development

for this research and decided against transforming the variable to assure its adequacy. It is important to note that the overall sample responded positively to the quality-of-life measure. A one-way ANOVA with gender as the independent variable and the career development composite variable as the dependent variable was conducted to determine if there were any significant differences based on gender. Results of the analysis revealed no significant differences. Table 1 reports means, standard deviations, and correlations between all variables that anchored significant paths in the structural equation model. Structural Equation Model All structural equation model (SEM) analyses were conducted with the maximum likelihood method of parameter estimation using Amos 5.0 (Arbuckle, 2003) statistical software to analyze the covariance matrix. A confirmatory factor analysis was conducted to determine the extent to which the proposed measurement model fit the data using only paths that were significant at p < .05. The chi-square value for the model was not statistically significant, 2 (8, N = 87) = 5.15, p = .74, suggesting that the measurement model was a good fit (i.e., the observed

correlation matrix is not significantly different from the expected correlation matrix). Other measures further indicated an excellent fit for the measurement model: Tucker-Lewis index (TLI) = 1.04, normed fit index (NFI) = 0.96, comparative fit index (CFI) = 1.0, root mean square error of approximation (RMSEA) = 0.00. In addition, all of the factor loadings were significant (p < .001), providing evidence that the latent factors were well represented by all of the indicators. The standardized factor loadings for the measurement model are available from the first author upon request. The structural model was built from the hypothesized model, and the path coefficients are reported in Figure 1. The structural model provided a very good fit to the data as evidenced by the nonsignificant chi-square value, 2 (31, N = 87) = 31.42, p = .45, as well as other fit indexes (TLI = 1.00, NFI = 0.87, CFI = 1.00, RMSEA = 0.00). All path coefficients were statistically significant (p < .05). Results suggested that enhanced career development in 12th grade predicted more successful transitions into the important adult roles of worker and learner and promoted a greater satisfaction with one’s life 3 years after graduating from high school.

services that they receive from their high school counselors.

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Figure 1. Postsecondary transitions for rural 12th graders: a 3-year longitudinal study (n = 87 young adults, 20-21 years of age; coefficients are standardized path coefficients from the structural equation model; all other fit indexes indicated that the proposed model fit the data).

DISCUSSION The purpose of this study was to test whether the advantages reported by high school seniors, who had integrated critical career development constructs into their present actions and approaches to possible career and educational futures, would actually lead to better outcomes in young adulthood. It was predicted that 3 years after graduating from high school, adolescents who had more fully developed these key school-to-career skills would have experienced measurable advantages. Specifically, these young adults would be more successful in transitioning into the adult roles of learner and worker. It also was expected that they would feel greater satisfaction in the quality of their lives and the direction their lives were heading. To collect this information,

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we contacted young adults who had participated in the initial Lapan et al. (2003) study as 12th graders, 3 years after they graduated from high school. Results supported the hypotheses that enhanced career development in high school was predictive of more successful transitions in young adulthood. Figure 1 presents the results of the structural equation analyses. As 12th graders, adolescents who had received emotional and instrumental support about career planning and postsecondary transitions from their school counselors, teachers, parents, and significant others were more likely to use the curriculum strategies of organizing their high school course of studies around a career goal that was meaningful to them. Support from others and the ability to organize one’s studies around a meaningful career goal explained half of all the variance in

our 12th-grade career development measure (R2 = .51). These high school seniors were much more likely to (a) develop positive expectations, (b) engage in relevant career exploratory behaviors and construct meaningful career goals, (c) better understand themselves and the world of work and how they could make a more optimal match between this self-understanding and career opportunities, (d) discover career paths that are more interesting and intrinsically motivating, (e) use work readiness behaviors and prosocial skills in school and other everyday settings, and (f) become more successful students. Three years after graduating from high school, those seniors who had made greater progress developing the critical career awareness, exploration, and planning skills outlined in the integrative/contextual model of career development (Lapan, 2004) reported greater success in transitioning into fundamental life roles in young adulthood. These young people were more likely to have found a direction to the work aspects of their lives that they were optimistic about, were acting in proactive ways to become more successful, and felt that this was a more stable path that they wanted to pursue in the future and not change into something else. These adults also were more likely to have achieved higher levels of education and training after leaving high school. Finally, these citizens were very satisfied with their lives and where they were taking themselves in the future.

LIMITATIONS OF THIS STUDY Three major limitations of this study should be noted. First, we had a relatively small sample size from which to conduct analyses. Every effort was made to include as many individuals from the original data set in the follow-up study as possible. However, the sample size did meet the minimum criteria (i.e., five subjects per variable) for inclusion in a structural equation model suggested by Kline (1998). Second, the sample was very homogenous and results should not be automatically generalized to other populations and settings. Young adults participating in this study were overwhelmingly Caucasian, all were from a rural Midwest setting, and most of the participants were women. Finally, there was a restriction of range in the sample data that could lead to an underestimation of the effects that accrue to enhanced career development in high school. The sample is from a rural setting that historically sends many adolescents to postsecondary educational and training settings. Overall, the sample is a high-achieving group with positive attitudes toward the future. This resulted in a restriction in range on several measures (with ratings tending to

be on the positive side of the scales) that likely reduced the magnitude of the correlations and path coefficients. In a more representative sample that would endorse a wider range of scale values, the relationship between career development in high school and transition into important adult roles is likely to be larger than what we found in the present study.

IMPLICATIONS FOR PROFESSIONAL SCHOOL COUNSELORS There are two clear implications for practicing professional school counselors. First, by attending to the career development competencies outlined in our professional standards (e.g., the ASCA National Model, 2005), school counselors can play a fundamental role in helping adolescents make more successful transitions in critical life roles in young adulthood. This is clearly an optimum intersection between the societal needs of an evolving pluralistic democracy and the mandates of leading professional organizations. Second, school counselors need to provide more extensive support to all students. There is clearly too much variability across students in relation to the services they receive from counselors. It is important to note that it is only possible to get significant path coefficients between career development in 12th grade and better outcomes in young adulthood; many students do not get the emotional and instrumental support they need from their school counselors. More consistency needs to become evident for all students in terms of the quality of the career development services that they receive from their high school counselors.

Enhanced career development in 12th grade is connected to more successful transitions into the adult roles of worker and learner.

CONCLUSION When high school seniors have more fully integrated critical career development skills into their school lives and how they are approaching impending postsecondary transitions, they are more likely to have measurable advantages in young adulthood. Enhanced career development in 12th grade is connected to more successful transitions into the adult roles of worker and learner and to greater satisfaction with one’s life 3 years after graduating from high school. Emotional and instrumental support for one’s career development helped these high school students to better organize their course of studies around meaningful career goals. Support and organizing one’s curriculum around a career goal promoted this enhanced career development before students left high school. School counselors, teachers, and parents can play profoundly influential roles in helping young people to find greater success early in their adult lives. Professional school counselors must ensure that these needed career development 1 0 : 3 F E B R UA R Y 2 0 0 7 | A S C A

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