Characteristics of Students who Express Stable or Undecided Occupational Expectations during Early Adolescence

Abstract

A predictive discriminant analysis (PDA) was used to classify students who expressed stable or undecided occupational expectation patterns during early adolescence. High school sophomores ( N = 6,935) who completed questionnaires in Grades 8 and 10, as part of the National Education Longitudinal Study of 1988 (NELS:88), comprised the data pool. Significant gender differences were found in the distribution of adolescents across four occupational expectation groups. Female adolescents were more likely to expect high-prestige and low-prestige occupations, whereas more male adolescents expressed moderate-prestige expectations. PDA results indicated that educational aspirations contributed the most to classification accuracy for both male and female adolescents with high-prestige expectations. Undecided female adolescents were characterized by a generalized and negative self-perception, whereas undecided male adolescents were characterized by a focused and negative perception of eventual occupational attainment.