Adolescents’ profiles in preparedness against

setbacks in future its relation to wellbeing

and future career pathways:

A person-oriented approach

Elina Marttinen, University of Jyväskylä, Finland

elina.marttinen@nyyti.fi

Katariina Salmela-Aro, University of Helsinki,

University of Jyväskylä

the 7th European conference on positive psychology,

ECPP 2014

Amsterdam, July 2nd

Resilience

Capacity of a dynamic system to adapt

successfully to disturbances that threaten

system function, viability, or development

(Ann Masten, 2014)

Resilience in career

development

• adaptation

– support seeking self-efficacy

– career self-efficacy

– preparedness against career setbacks

• challenging circumstances

– the school transitions

Lent, R.W. (2013). Career-Life Preparedness: Revisiting Career Planning and Adjustment in the New Workplace.The career

Development Quarterly, 61, 2-14.

Salmela-Aro, K., Mutanen, P. & Vuori, J. (2012). Promoting career preparedness and intrinsic work-goal motivation: RCT

intervention. Journal of Vocational Behavior, 80, 67-75.

The research questions explorative, person oriented

1. Can there be found latent profiles of career development

adaptation?

2. How many latent profiles would describe the data best?

3. What kinds of latent profiles can be found from adolescents’

support seeking self-efficacy, career self-efficacy, and

preparedness against career setbacks?

4. How these profiles are related to intrinsic motivation

towards career goal, and subjective well-being?

Hypotheses:

1. high self-efficacy and preparedness -> high intrinsic goal motivation

and good well-being

2. low self-efficacy and preparedness -> low intrinsic goal motivation and

poor well-being

Context for adolescents’

development in Finland

16 yearsold

17 yearsold

18 yearsold

…

23 yearsold

TRA

NSITIO

N

TRA

NSITIO

N

N=697

girls 47,2 %

FinEdu

ongoing longitudinal

research project

Methods: measuresMeasures (items, range) Cronbach α T1 Mean (sd)

Adaptation

Support seeking self-efficacy (3 items, 1-7)

.73 5.01 (1.20)

Career self-efficacy (3 items, 1-7)

.82 4.98 (1.14)

Preparedness (4 items, 1-7)

.74 3.64 (1.28)

Engagement

Intrinsic motivation towards career goal(4 items, 1-7)

.72 5.64 (0.93)

Well-being

Self-esteem (5 items, 1-7)

.76 4.64 (1.12)

Satisfaction with life (5 items, 1-7)

.88 4.57 (1.39)

Depression (10 items, 0-3)

.92 0.59 (0.59)

Burn-out (9 items, 1-7)

.85 2.46 (0.88)

Can there be found uniquely

different subgroups?

• Person orientation

• Latent path analysis (LPA)

• Mplus 7.11

LPA fit indices

groups

log-likelihood (df), scaling correction

AIC BIC Entropy VLMR (p-value)

LMR (p-value)

BLRT apr. p-value

lowestclass

probability

2 -3208.566 (10) 1.2166 6437.132 6482.600 0.623 0.0000 0.0000 0.0000 0.848 (1)

3 -3163.436 (14) 1.1921 6354.872 6418.527 0.734 0.0002 0.0003 0.0000 0.862 (2)

4 -3148.944 (18) 1.1616 6333.889 6415.731 0.763 0.0504 0.0556 0.0000 0.775 (2)

5 -3135.521 (22) 1.2718 6315.042 6415.071 0.766 0.2324 0.2468 0.0000 0.851 (6)

6 -3119.180 (26) 1.3408 6290.360 6408.576 0.742 0.3997 0.4128 0.0000 0.754 (3)

7 -3109.202 (30) 1.2566 6278.404 6414.807 0.792 0.2489 0.2567 0.0000 0.770 (3)

Profiles of 6 groups solution

1

2

3

4

5

6

7

"problematic"(N=12)

"low prepared andlow efficacious"

(N=125)

"support seekers"(N=22)

"go, don't thinktoo much" (N=25)

"moderate"(N=331)

"prepared andefficacious"

(N=182)

preparedness career self-efficacy support seeking self-efficacy

Results, group differencesANOVA, p<.05

• SES, GPA ns.

• gender differences were found between groups

• Well-being:

• ”the prepared and efficacious” group

– appraised their career goal the most intrinsically

motivated

– highest satisfaction with life

• ”the go don’t think too much” group

– highest self-esteem

• ”the support seekers” and ”problematic” group

– highest amount of depressive symptoms as well as burn-

out symptoms

Conclusions

• Limitations

– Three of the groups are very small in size

– Longitudinal approach is needed to investigate

the development over the transitions

• Conclusions

– Individual differences in resilience need to be

studied also with person oriented approach