Adolescents’ Cognitive Habitus, Learning Environments, Affective Outcomes of Schooling, and Young Adults’ Educational Attainment

Abstract

A moderation–mediation model was constructed to examine relationships among adolescents’ cognitive habitus (their cognitive dispositions), learning environments, affective outcomes of schooling, and young adults’ educational attainment. Data were collected as part of a longitudinal survey of Australian youth (4,171 females, 3,718 males). The findings from the secondary analysis indicated that when cognitive habitus was defined conjointly by academic achievement and cognitive attitudes to school: (1) adolescents’ cognitive habitus, learning environments, and affective outcomes combined to have a large association with young adults’ educational attainment; (2) relationships among adolescents’ learning environments, affective outcomes of schooling, and young adults’ educational attainment were moderated by adolescents’ cognitive habitus; (3) the relationships between adolescents’ cognitive habitus and young adults’ educational attainment were mediated, in part, by adolescents’ learning environments and affective outcomes; and (4) there were cognitive habitus differences in the linear and curvilinear nature of the relationships among adolescents’ learning environments, affective outcomes of schooling, and young adults’ educational attainment.