Regular Article
Longitudinal Analysis of Select Influences on Adolescents' Occupational Aspirations

https://doi.org/10.1006/jvbe.1996.1561Get rights and content

Abstract

The National Education Longitudinal Study of 1988 was used to investigate the longitudinal influence of select demographic and latent variables on the development of adolescents' occupational aspirations at three critical points in the career development process—early, mid-, and late adolescence. Linear structural equation (LISREL) analysis examined the contributions of family status, academic achievement, and social psychological variables. Occupational aspirations of adolescents were relatively stable across the 4-year time period. Further, earlier aspirations offered significant predictive power for subsequent ones. Structural coefficients for social demographic variables indicated that socioeconomic status (SES) had significant effects on adolescents' aspirations. In contrast, two latent variables, academic achievement and self-evaluation, initially represented only modest effects on aspirations which then decreased consistently over time.

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Address correspondence and reprint requests to Jay W. Rojewski, Department of Occupational Studies, The University of Georgia, 624 Aderhold Hall, Athens, GA 30602-7162. E-mail: via Internet [email protected].

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