Abstract
This longitudinal study investigated the contributions of Chinese secondary school students’ meaning in life in Grade 10 to vocational identity in Grade 12 in different Chinese settings. Whether vocational exploration and commitment reported by students (VECS) in Grade 11, and the vocational exploration and commitment reported by parents (VECP) of the students mediate the above link was examined as well. Participants comprised 435 students and their parents/guardians from Hong Kong, 422 students and their parents/guardians from urban Shanghai, and 308 students and their parents/guardians from rural Zhejiang. Partial mediation of the VECS in the relationship between meaning in life and vocational identity was significant in the Shanghai and Zhejiang rural samples. In the Hong Kong sample, the VECP was significantly predicted by meaning in life and could predict vocational identity. Associations between parental perceptions of vocational commitment and adolescents’ own career development might therefore be weaker than previously believed. The pattern of the relationships between meaning in life, vocational commitment and identity, and the influence of parents on adolescents’ career development in different Chinese local contexts are discussed herein.
Highlights
Vocational identity, as one core aspect of adolescent identity development (Erikson, 1968), has been defined by Holland, Gottfredson, and Power (1980) as ‘the possession of a clear and stable picture of one’s goals, interests, and talents’ (p. 1191). Savickas (1985) argued that vocational identity is related to both vocational development and ego identity formation and that it forms the basis upon which students crystallise tentative career preferences
Note: ML = meaning in life, Vocational Identity (VI) = vocational identity, VECS = vocational exploration and commitment reported by students, VECP = vocational exploration and commitment reported by parents of the students. #F test examined regional differences in the corresponding variables, ##F test examined gender differences in the corresponding variables
A multivariate analysis of variance (MANOVA) was employed to examine the overall effects of gender and region and their interaction on meaning in life, vocational exploration and commitment reported by students (VECS), and the vocational exploration and commitment reported by parents (VECP) of the students, and vocational identity
Summary
This study was a part of a 3-year longitudinal study on adolescent career development that was conducted in three Chinese locations since 2013. The relevant data were collected from adolescents in Grade 10, Grade 11, and Grade 12. All data collections were conducted in the first semester of the corresponding grade. The interval between two data collections was 1 year, and the whole longitudinal study lasted 2 years, with a three-wave data collection
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