1 PowerPoint slides prepared by Leonard R. Mendola, PhD Touro College McGraw-Hill Copyright © 2010 The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc. All rights reserved. 2 Chapter 11: Achievement, Work, and Careers Outline • ACHIEVEMENT – – – – The Importance of Achievement in Adolescence Achievement Processes Social Relationships and Contexts Some Obstacles to Achievement • WORK – – – – McGraw-Hill Work in Adolescence Working While Going to College Work/Career-Based Learning Work in Emerging Adulthood Copyright © 2010 The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc. All rights reserved. 3 Chapter 11: Achievement, Work, and Careers Outline • CAREER DEVELOPMENT – Developmental Changes – Personality Styles – Cognitive Factors – Identity Development – Social Contexts McGraw-Hill Copyright © 2010 The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc. All rights reserved. 4 Achievement As adolescence and emerging adulthood unfold, achievement takes a more central role in development, work becomes a major aspect of life, and careers play an increasing role. McGraw-Hill Copyright © 2010 The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc. All rights reserved. 5 Achievement • The Importance of Achievement in Adolescence – Adolescence is a critical juncture in achievement (Eccles & Roeser, 2009; Reksten, 2009). – Achievement becomes a more serious business. – How effectively adolescents adapt to these new academic and social pressures is determined, in part, by psychological, motivational, and contextual factors (Anderman & Mueller, 2009). McGraw-Hill Copyright © 2010 The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc. All rights reserved. 6 Achievement • Achievement Motivation Processes – Intrinsic Motivation • Internal factors such as self-determination, curiosity, challenge, and effort. – Extrinsic Motivation • External incentives such as rewards and punishments. McGraw-Hill Copyright © 2010 The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc. All rights reserved. 7 Achievement • Self-Determination and Personal Choice – Adolescents have control over what they are doing because of their own will, not because of external success or rewards. • Interest – Has been proposed as more specific than intrinsic motivation (Hulleman & others, 2008). – A distinction has been made: • Individual interest • Situational interest McGraw-Hill Copyright © 2010 The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc. All rights reserved. 8 Achievement • Interest (Continued) – Individual interest • Thought to be relatively stable. – Situational interest • Believed to be generated by specific aspects of a task activity. • Research on interest has focused mainly on • how interest is related to learning. Linked to measures of deep learning (Wigfield & others, 2006). McGraw-Hill Copyright © 2010 The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc. All rights reserved. 9 Achievement • Cognitive Engagement and SelfResponsibility – Phyllis Blumenfeld and her colleagues (2006a,b) have proposed another variation on intrinsic motivation: • Creating learning environments that encourage students to become cognitively engaged. • Have students take responsibility for their learning. – The goal is to get students to become motivated to expend the effort to persist and master ideas rather than simply doing enough work to just get by and make a passing grade. McGraw-Hill Copyright © 2010 The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc. All rights reserved. 10 Achievement • Attribution – Attribution theory states that individuals are motivated to discover the underlying causes of their own performance and behavior. – Attributions are perceived causes of outcomes. McGraw-Hill Copyright © 2010 The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc. All rights reserved. 11 Achievement • Attribution (Continued) – Adolescents are like intuitive scientists, seeking to explain the cause behind what happens (Weiner, 2005). – The best strategies for teachers to use in helping students is to get adolescents to attribute their poor performance on internal factors such as a lack of effort rather than on external factors such as bad luck or blaming others. McGraw-Hill Copyright © 2010 The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc. All rights reserved. 12 Achievement • Mastery Motivation and Mindset • Becoming cognitively engaged and self-motivated to improve are reflected in adolescents with a mastery motivation. • They have a growth mindset that they can produce positive outcomes if they put forth the effort. McGraw-Hill Copyright © 2010 The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc. All rights reserved. 13 Achievement • Mastery Motivation • Developmental psychologists Valanne Henderson and Carol Dweck (1990) found that adolescents often show two distinct responses to difficult or challenging circumstances: • Mastery orientation • Helpless orientation McGraw-Hill Copyright © 2010 The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc. All rights reserved. 14 Achievement • Mastery-oriented adolescents • Instruct themselves to pay attention. • Remember strategies that have worked for them in previous situation. • Report feeling challenged and excited by difficult tasks, rather than being threatened by them (Anderman & Wolters, 2006). • Winning isn’t everything. McGraw-Hill Copyright © 2010 The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc. All rights reserved. 15 Achievement • Helpless Orientation – Individuals focus on their personal inadequacies, attribute difficulty to lack of ability, and display negative affect. McGraw-Hill Copyright © 2010 The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc. All rights reserved. 16 Achievement Behaviors That Suggest Helplessness Fig. 11.1 McGraw-Hill Copyright © 2010 The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc. All rights reserved. 17 Achievement • Performance-oriented adolescents • Are focused on winning, rather than on achievement outcome. • Believe that happiness results from winning. • Skill development and self-efficacy take a backseat to winning. Students can be both mastery and performanceoriented, and researchers have found that mastery goals combined with performance goals often benefit students’ success (Schunk, Pintrich, & Meece, 2008). McGraw-Hill Copyright © 2010 The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc. All rights reserved. 18 Achievement • Performance Orientation – Individuals are concerned with performance outcome rather than performance process. – Winning is what matters. McGraw-Hill Copyright © 2010 The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc. All rights reserved. 19 Achievement • Mindset – Carol Dweck’s (2006, 2007) most recent analysis of motivation for achievement stresses the importance of adolescents developing a mindset. – Defined as the cognitive view individuals develop for themselves. – Individuals have one of two mindsets: 1. Fixed mindset – Individuals believe that their qualities are carved in stone and cannot change. 2. Growth mindset – McGraw-Hill Individuals believe their qualities can change and improve through their effort. Copyright © 2010 The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc. All rights reserved. 20 Achievement • Mindset (Continued) – A fixed mindset is similar to a helpless orientation. – A growth mindset is much like having mastery motivation. – Dweck (2006) argued that individuals’ mindsets influence: • Whether they will be optimistic or pessimistic. • Shape their goals and how hard they will strive to reach those goals. • Many aspects of their lives, including achievement and success in school and sports. McGraw-Hill Copyright © 2010 The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc. All rights reserved. 21 Achievement • Self-Efficacy – The belief that one can master a situation and produce favorable outcomes. – A critical factor in whether or not adolescents achieve (Bandura, 1997, 2004, 2007, 2008, 2009). – Has much in common with mastery motivation. McGraw-Hill Copyright © 2010 The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc. All rights reserved. 22 Achievement • Expectations • Can exert a powerful influence on adolescents’ motivation (Eccles, 2007). • How hard adolescents work can depend on how much they expect to accomplish. • Eccles (1987, 1993) defined expectations for students’ success as “beliefs about how well they will do on upcoming tasks, either in the immediate or long-term future” (Wigfield & others, 2006). McGraw-Hill Copyright © 2010 The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc. All rights reserved. 23 Achievement • Expectations (Continued) • Eccles identified three aspects of ability: • Students’ beliefs about how good they are at a particular activity. • How good they are in comparison to other individuals. • How good they are in relation to their performance in other activities. • In Eccles’ view, the culture’s achievement orientation also plays a role in influencing students’ expectations. • How hard students work also depends on the value they place on the goal. McGraw-Hill Copyright © 2010 The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc. All rights reserved. 24 Achievement • Parents’ and Teachers’ Expectations • Parents’ expectations are linked with children’s and adolescents’ academic achievement (Burchinal & others, 2002). • Teachers’ expectations influence students’ motivation and performance. • Teachers often have more positive expectations for high-ability than for low-ability students, and these expectations are likely to influence their behavior toward them. • It is more beneficial to set standards that challenge adolescents and expect performance at the highest levels they are capable of achieving. McGraw-Hill Copyright © 2010 The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc. All rights reserved. 25 Achievement • Goal Setting, Planning, and Self-Monitoring – Self-efficacy and achievement improve when adolescents set goals that are specific, proximal, and challenging (Bandura, 1997). – Adolescents can set both long-term (distal) and short-term (proximal) goals. – It is not enough to simply set goals. – Adolescents need to learn to plan how they will reach their goals. – Being a good planner means managing time effectively, setting priorities, and being organized. McGraw-Hill Copyright © 2010 The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc. All rights reserved. 26 Achievement • Purpose – William Damon (2008) proposed that purpose is the missing ingredient in many adolescents’ and emerging adults’ achievement. – For Damon, purpose is an intention to accomplish something meaningful to one’s self and to contribute something to the world beyond the self. – Damon concludes that most teachers and parents communicate the importance of such goals as studying hard and getting good grades, but rarely discuss what the goals might lead to—the purpose for studying hard and getting good grades. McGraw-Hill Copyright © 2010 The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc. All rights reserved. 27 Achievement • • Social Relationships and Contexts – Adolescents’ relationships with parents, peers, teachers, and mentors can be key aspects of their achievement. Parents – Some additional positive parenting practices that result in improved achievement in adolescents (Wigfield & others, 2006): • Knowing enough about the adolescent to provide the right amount of challenge and the right amount of support. • Providing a positive emotional climate, which motivates adolescents to internalize their parents’ values and goals. • Modeling motivated achievement behavior: working hard and persisting with effort at challenging tasks. McGraw-Hill Copyright © 2010 The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc. All rights reserved. 28 Achievement • • • Social Relationships and Contexts (Continued) Peers – Can affect adolescents’ achievement through social goals, social comparison, and peer status. Teachers – Play a key role in adolescents’ achievement. – Effective, engaging teachers provide support for adolescents’ to make good progress and encourage them to become selfregulated achievers (Pressley & others, 2007a,b). – The encouragement takes place in a very positive environment, one in which adolescents are regularly being guided to become motivated to try hard and develop self-efficacy. McGraw-Hill Copyright © 2010 The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc. All rights reserved. 29 Achievement • • Social Relationships and Contexts (Continued) Mentors – Are usually older and more experienced individuals who are motivated to improve the competence and character of a young person. – Mentoring can involve: • • • • Demonstration Instruction Challenge Encouragement – As a positive mentoring experience proceeds, the mentor and the youth develop a bond of commitment and the youth develops a sense of respect and identification with the mentor (Hamilton & Hamilton, 2006). McGraw-Hill Copyright © 2010 The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc. All rights reserved. 30 Achievement • • Social Relationships and Contexts (Continued) Mentors – Mentoring may take place naturally or through a mentoring program (Hamilton & Hamilton, 2006). – Mentoring programs are increasingly being advocated as a strategy for improving the achievement of secondary school and college students who are at risk for failure (Hill, 2008; Lindley, 2009; Rhodes & Lowe, 2009; Rowley, 2009). – College students can play important roles as mentors for atrisk children and adolescents (Schmidt, Marks, & Derrico, 2004). McGraw-Hill Copyright © 2010 The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc. All rights reserved. 31 Achievement Socio-cultural Contexts • Ethnicity and Socioeconomic Status – The diversity that exists among ethnic minority adolescents is evident in their achievement (Hudley, 2009; Lee & Wong, 2009). – Too often the achievement of ethnic minority student— especially African American, Latino, and Native American students—has been interpreted as deficits by middlesocioeconomic-status non-Latino white standards, when they simply are culturally different and distinct. – Many investigations overlook the socioeconomic-status (SES) of ethnic minority students (Graham & Taylor, 2001). – Many studies have found that SES predicts achievement better than ethnicity. McGraw-Hill Copyright © 2010 The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc. All rights reserved. 32 Achievement Culture • Since the early 1990s the poor performance of American children and adolescents in math and science has become well publicized. McGraw-Hill Copyright © 2010 The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc. All rights reserved. 33 Ethnicity and Culture International Comparison of 8th Grade Students’ Math Achievement: 2007 Fig 11.2 McGraw-Hill Copyright © 2010 The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc. All rights reserved. 34 Ethnicity and Culture Mothers’ Beliefs About the Factors Responsible for Children’s Math Achievement in Three Countries Fig 11.3 McGraw-Hill Copyright © 2010 The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc. All rights reserved. 35 Achievement Some Motivational Obstacles to Achievement • • Achievement problems can surface when individuals: – Don’t set goals. – Don’t plan how to reach them. – Don’t monitor progress toward the goals. Problems can also arise when individuals: – Procrastinate. – Become overwhelmed by anxiety. – Try to protect their self-worth by avoiding failure. McGraw-Hill Copyright © 2010 The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc. All rights reserved. 36 Work • Socio-Historical Context of Work in Adolescence – What kinds of jobs are U.S. adolescents working at today? • About 17 percent work in fast-food restaurants waiting on customers and cleaning up. • About 20 percent work in retail stores as cashiers or salespeople. • About 10 percent in offices as clerical assistants. • About 10 percent as unskilled laborers. • The weight of the evidence suggests that spending large amounts of time in paid labor has limited developmental benefits for youth, and for some it is associated with risky behavior and costs to physical health (Larson, Wilson, & Rickman, 2009). McGraw-Hill Copyright © 2010 The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc. All rights reserved. 37 Work • Socio-Historical Context of Work in Adolescence – Part-Time Work in Adolescence • When adolescents spend more than 20 hours per week working, there is little time to study for tests and to complete homework assignments. • Working adolescents feel less involved in school, are absent more, and reported that they did not enjoy school as much as their nonworking counterparts did. McGraw-Hill Copyright © 2010 The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc. All rights reserved. 38 Work • Work Profiles of Adolescents Around the World – In many developing countries boys often spend more time in income-generating labor than girls do while girls spend more time in unpaid labor than boys (Larson, Wilson, & Rickman, 2009). – Spending large amounts of time in paid labor has limited developmental benefits for youth, and for some it is associated with risk behavior and costs to physical health (Larson, Wilson, & Rickman, 2009). McGraw-Hill Copyright © 2010 The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc. All rights reserved. 39 Work • Working While Going to College • The percentage of full-time U.S. college students who were employed increased from 34 percent in 1970 to 46 percent in 2006 (National Center for Education Statistics, 2008c). • Working can pay or help offset some costs of schooling, but working can also restrict students’ opportunities to learn and negatively influence grades. • As the number of hours worked per week increased for those who identified themselves primarily as students, their grades suffered and the number of classes, class choice, and library access became more limited (National Center for Education Statistics, 2002). McGraw-Hill Copyright © 2010 The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc. All rights reserved. 40 Work • Working While Going to College (Continued) – College (Continued) • College students need to carefully examine the number of hours they work and the extent the work is having a negative impact on their college success. • Although borrowing to pay for education can leave students with considerable debt, working long hours reduces the amount of time students have for studying and can decrease the likelihood that these students will do well or even complete their college degree. McGraw-Hill Copyright © 2010 The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc. All rights reserved. 41 Work The Relation of Hours Worked Per Week in College to Grades Fig. 11.4 McGraw-Hill Copyright © 2010 The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc. All rights reserved. 42 Work • Work/Career-Based Learning – High School • Work/career-based learning increasingly has become part of the effort to help youth make the transition from school to employment. • Today’s high school diploma provides access to fewer and fewer stable, high-paying jobs. • New forms of career-related education are creating options for many students. • Among the new models are: – Career academics – Youth apprenticeships – Tech prep programs McGraw-Hill Copyright © 2010 The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc. All rights reserved. 43 Work • Work/Career-Based Learning (Continued) – College • College students can participate in cooperative education programs, or part-time or summer work relevant to their field of study. • This experience can be critical in helping students obtain the job they want when they graduate (Martinez, 2006). • A co-op is a paid apprenticeship in a career that a college student is interested in pursuing. McGraw-Hill Copyright © 2010 The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc. All rights reserved. 44 Work • Work in Emerging Adulthood – The work patterns of emerging adults have changed over the course of the last 100 years (Hamilton & Hamilton, 2006). – Changing economic conditions have made the job market more competitive for emerging adults and increased the demand for more skilled workers (Gauthier & Furstenberg, 2005). – A diversity of school and work patterns characterize emerging adults (Fouad & Bynner, 2008; Hamilton & Hamilton, 2006). McGraw-Hill Copyright © 2010 The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc. All rights reserved. 45 Work • Work in Emerging Adulthood (Continued) – The nature of the transition from school to work in emerging adulthood is strongly influenced by the individual’s level of education. – In the last two decades, the job market for emerging adults with only a high school education has worsened. – The MacArthur Foundation Research Network on Emerging Adults recently concluded that for emerging adults who don’t go to college, the problem is not jobs but a lack of good jobs. (Setterson, Furstenberg, & Rumbaut, 2005). McGraw-Hill Copyright © 2010 The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc. All rights reserved. 46 Career Development • Developmental Changes – Many children have idealistic fantasies about what they want to be when they grow up. • Personality Types – Personality type theory is John Holland’s view that it is important to match an individual’s personality with a specific. McGraw-Hill Copyright © 2010 The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc. All rights reserved. 47 Career Development • Personality Types (Continued) – Holland proposed six basic careerrelated personality types: • • • • • • McGraw-Hill Realistic Investigative Artistic Social Enterprising Conventional Copyright © 2010 The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc. All rights reserved. 48 Career Development Holland’s Model of Personality Types and Career Choices Fig. 11.5 McGraw-Hill Copyright © 2010 The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc. All rights reserved. 49 Career Development • Cognitive Factors – Germeijs & Verschueren (2006) identified three important roles in adolescent’s career choices: • Exploration • Decision making • Planning – Adolescents often approach career exploration and decision making with considerable ambiguity, uncertainty, and stress. McGraw-Hill Copyright © 2010 The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc. All rights reserved. 50 Career Development • Cognitive Factors (Continued) – Many of the career decisions made by youth involve floundering and unplanned changes. – Many adolescents do not adequately explore careers on their own and also receive little direction from guidance counselors at their schools. – In many schools, students not only do not know what information to seek about careers, they do not know how to seek it. McGraw-Hill Copyright © 2010 The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc. All rights reserved. 51 Career Development • Identity Development – Career development is related to the adolescent’s and emerging adult’s identity development (Murrell, 2009). – Career decidedness and planning are positively related to identity achievement (Wallace-Broscious, Serafica, & Osipow, 1994). – Vocational identity development plays a leading role in identity development. McGraw-Hill Copyright © 2010 The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc. All rights reserved. 52 Career Development Identity Status Development in Different Domains Fig. 11.6 McGraw-Hill Copyright © 2010 The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc. All rights reserved. 53 Career Development • Social Contexts – Among the important social contexts that influence career development are: • • • • • McGraw-Hill Socioeconomic status Parents and peers School influences Gender Ethnic minority adolescents Copyright © 2010 The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc. All rights reserved. 54 RESOURCES FOR IMPROVING THE LIVES OF ADOLESCENTS Mindset by Carol Dweck. (2006). New York: Random House. Extensive information and examples are provided about how adolescents can develop a growth mind set that will improve their achievement. McGraw-Hill Copyright © 2010 The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc. All rights reserved. 55 RESOURCES FOR IMPROVING THE LIVES OF ADOLESCENTS Motivation in Education edited by Dale Schunk, Paul Pintrich, & Judith Meece. (2008). An authoritative, detailed review of many aspects of achievement discussed in this chapter and their application to education. McGraw-Hill Copyright © 2010 The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc. All rights reserved. 56 RESOURCES FOR IMPROVING THE LIVES OF ADOLESCENTS “Mentoring in Adolescence” by Jean Rhodes and Sarah Lowe. (2009). In R.M. Lerner & L. Steinberg (Eds.), Handbook of Adolescent Psychology (3rd Ed.). New York: Wiley. Leading experts describe research on mentoring and highlight the aspects of mentoring that are most successful in improving adolescents’ achievement. McGraw-Hill Copyright © 2010 The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc. All rights reserved. 57 RESOURCES FOR IMPROVING THE LIVES OF ADOLESCENTS What Color Is Your Parachute? by Richard Bolles. (2009). Berkeley, CA: Ten Speed Press. This is an extremely popular book on job hunting. McGraw-Hill Copyright © 2010 The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc. All rights reserved. 58 RESOURCES FOR IMPROVING THE LIVES OF ADOLESCENTS What Kids Need to Succeed by Peter Benson, Judy Galbraith, and Pamela Espeland. (2003). Minneapolis: Search Institute. This easy-to-read book presents commonsense ideas for parents, educators, and youth workers that can help youth succeed. McGraw-Hill Copyright © 2010 The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc. All rights reserved. 59 E-LEARNING TOOLS To help you master the material in this chapter, visit the Online Learning Center for Adolescence, 13th edition at: http://www.mhhe.com/santrocka13e McGraw-Hill Copyright © 2010 The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc. All rights reserved.