The Role of a Supportive Interpersonal Environment and Education-Related Goal Motivation During the Transition Beyond Upper Secondary Education

Publication date: Available online 4 September 2018Source: Contemporary Educational PsychologyAuthor(s): Kati Vasalampi, Noona Kiuru, Katariina Salmela-AroAbstractThis longitudinal study investigated the role of parents and peers as well as of education-related goal motivation during educational transitioning in late adolescence. The sample consisted of 1,520 upper secondary education students attending either academic or vocational upper secondary school in Finland. They were surveyed three times: (1) in the first year of their upper secondary education, 2) in the second year of their upper secondary education, and (3) two years later. The results show, first, that when students in upper secondary education pursued their educational goals out of autonomous motivation they also invested more effort in their goals, which was reflected in high levels of goal progress. High goal progress, in turn, was related to high levels of school satisfaction, whereas low goal progress was associated with the intention to drop out of school. By contrast, controlled motivation was associated neither with goal effort or goal progress in educational goals. Second, different interpersonal environments played unique and different roles in adolescents’ educational goals. While mothers’ affective warmth and involvement particularly enhanced adolescents’ autonomous motivation, fathers’ affective support directly predicted high levels of school satisfaction and low intentions to drop out of u...
Source: Contemporary Educational Psychology - Category: Child Development Source Type: research