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Self-regulation and the transition to adulthood.

Article Excerpt
Abstract

Longitudinal interview data from 50 adolescents reveal that an early sense of realism, or knowledge about requirements of one's future goals, contributes to adolescents' self-regulation, or willingness to regulate actions to achieve those goals. Self-regulation, in turn, is associated with adolescents' engagement in career-related activities. These internal resources, rather than background characteristics, most robustly predict engagement in activities related to future goals.

Introduction

Adolescents' future plans are often not accompanied by specific strategies for achieving these educational and occupational goals. The majority of adolescents today expect to attend college; in fact, adolescents attend college in higher numbers than ever before (Schneider & Stevenson, 1999). Because of the highly ambitious nature of young people today, competition is more intense than ever before, and adolescents must learn how to develop a pathway to their goals (Csikszentmihalyi & Schneider, 2000). Encouraging adolescents to develop high ambitions is no longer the most critical issue; the more pressing question is how adolescents translate ambitions into accomplishments.

Adolescents rely on both external and internal resources for future success. From parents, teachers, and peers, adolescents need to obtain an educational foundation, information about college and careers, and financial assistance to attend college. Internally, adolescents need to develop a sense of realism and self-regulation about their abilities, goals, and plan of action. Realism refers to a person's career-specific knowledge about their desired occupation, and it develops through access to information from parents, guidance counselors, and peers about the skill and educational requirements of a job. A person with a high sense of realism is likely to develop aligned ambitions; that is, knowledge about the specific and appropriate path for their stated goals. Self-regulation measures adolescents' ability to monitor their activities, assess their performances, motivate themselves, and maintain resiliency while learning from academic and social disappointments (Zimmerman & Martinez-Pons, 1988, 1990). Self-regulation draws on social cognitive functioning, and, therefore, adolescence is a particularly salient developmental period for the creation of self-regulation. Because self-control is one element of self-regulation, it might develop with maturity as adolescents are better able to control their impulses and act appropriately to their situations.

Research on self-regulation's role in education has generally focused on academic achievement; students who display higher levels of self-regulation perform better on academic tasks (Bandura, 1993; Zimmerman & Bandura, 1994). Here, self-regulation of learning is extended and applied to academic success in terms of taking the steps to transitioning to postsecondary education or gainful employment. Being self-regulated aids students in preparing for immediate academic success by facilitating good study habits, but self-regulation may also assist students in achieving long-term goals by enabling them to see the "big picture" and plan their current actions according to the needs of their future.

Researchers have...

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