Social-Emotional Skills, Career Adaptability, and Agentic School Engagement of First-Year High School Students

Íris M. Oliveira, Inês de Castro, Ana Daniela Silva and Maria do Céu Taveira ()
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Íris M. Oliveira: Faculty of Philosophy and Social Sciences, Centre for Philosophical and Humanistic Studies, Universidade Católica Portuguesa, 4710 Braga, Portugal
Inês de Castro: Association of Psychology, University of Minho, 4710 Braga, Portugal
Ana Daniela Silva: Association of Psychology, University of Minho, 4710 Braga, Portugal
Maria do Céu Taveira: Association of Psychology, University of Minho, 4710 Braga, Portugal

IJERPH, 2023, vol. 20, issue 8, 1-11

Abstract: The transition to the first year of high school constitutes a critical moment because it corresponds to the implementation of a career choice, which can impact students’ satisfaction and psychosocial adjustment. The career construction model of adaptation holds potential to explain how students adapt to high school, by suggesting linkages among adaptive readiness, resources, responses, and results. However, research applying the career construction model to school transitions, combining social-emotional, career, and academic variables is still needed. This study explores the roles that social-emotional skills (an indicator of adaptive readiness) and career adaptability (an indicator of adaptability resources) play in explaining first-year high school students’ agentic school engagement (an indicator of adapting responses). Measures of social-emotional skills, career adaptability, and school engagement were completed by 136 students (63.2% girls; M age = 15.68). Results from the hierarchical linear regression analysis suggest that social-emotional skills and career adaptability explain 32% of the variance and significantly contribute to explaining agentic school engagement. These findings seem illustrative of the potential of the career construction model of adaptation to deepen knowledge and understanding about the transition to high school and the implementation of career choices. Aligned with the literature, this study supports the calls for integrative psychological practices that acknowledge social-emotional, career, and academic variables when fostering students’ psychosocial adjustment.

Keywords: career adaptation; psychosocial adjustment; high school (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: I I1 I3 Q Q5 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2023
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