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RESEARCH PRODUCT

Developmental Psychologists’ Perspective on Pathways Through School and Beyond

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This chapter applies sequence analysis—a method rarely applied by psychologists—to examine the transitional pathways of young people through the Finnish education system from a developmental psychologists’ perspective. Our aims were threefold: First, to identify typical pathways; second, to investigate whether psychological resources, operationalized as career goal appraisal, predict a certain educational trajectory; and, third, to examine the extent to which career goal appraisal shows differential change among young people on different educational pathways. Data analyses were based on the FinEdu study, in which N = 611 Finnish students were followed from age 16 (end of comprehensive school) to age 20, when most participants had completed school. At age 20, participants provided life-calendar data which was used to identifying transitional patterns by sequence analysis. Career goals were assessed at ages 16, 18, and 20 years. Our results revealed seven transitional patterns: five related to academic education, one to vocational education, and one dominated by moratorium activities. The results further showed that career goal appraisal weakly predicted transition sequences and was also shaped by the series of educational transitions young people went through.