Berufliche Entscheidungen und Entwicklungsverläufe im Jugendalter und jungen Erwachsenenalter (BEN)

The aim of the following research project is to analyze the determinants of adolescents’ and young adults’ career decisions.
At the end of compulsory school and at the end of vocational education and training (VET), and in the age of a young adult, career decisions were examined from an adolescent’s perspective.
At the first wave of data collection, criteria for (apprenticeship) staffing analyzed from a HR manager’s perspective as well. Three decision-making situations, which are crucial for vocational educational processes, were analyzed: (1) before entering vocational education and training (VET), (2) at the time of graduation from VET (possible options: employment, interim solution, tertiary level qualifications, additional VET, further education), (3) after 4-5 years of employment (possible options: tertiary level qualifications, additional VET, further education). In the following measurement waves determinants for implementing a career decision were examined through repeated measurements. From a theoretical perspective, in addition to decision-adaptive trajectories, maladaptive courses that either result in adjustments or terminations with reorientations are feasible. Reasons for adjustments are found in experienced occupational stress that young adults fail to moderate due to lack of appropriate resources. The balance between occupational stress and resources is a control mechanism that regulates life courses and in which primary and secondary control processes (as shown in the model of Heckhausen and Schulz, 2010) are essential. Through the implementation of career decisions, young adults enter new vocational and further educational contexts. By performing actions, they initiate personal developmental processes, which – in the best case – lead to the realization of a decision (for example to a further education degree). The extent of the goal attainment subsequently affects not only the original educational expectancies and values but also the perception of vocational person-environment fit, vocational satisfaction, job commitment, perception of vocational continuity and vocational self-efficacy.
This explanatory model of vocational development was examined by means of two additional surveys of the sample from the initial project (cohort-sequence-design). After two and four years respectively, adolescents of all three cohorts were online surveyed for a second and third time. At the second time the sample was supplemented with additional participants so each cohort counted at least 800 participants. These data offered the opportunity for a longitudinal review of the postulated explanatory model on regulation of vocational careers. Data enabled the analysis of adolescents’ vocational trajectories and their willingness for an apprenticeship or further education between elementary school and tertiary level qualifications from a theory-driven and differentiated perspective. Further, it was possible to substantially extend previous knowledge , for example regarding expedient controlling and optimization of further education options and offers.