Educational and Occupational Aspiration Alignment Among Rural High School Youth

1. Educational and Occupational Aspiration Alignment Among Rural High School Youth Bryan C. Hutchins, Judith L. Meece, Soo-yong Byun, Belinda Locke, Laura A. Shaffer,Wakako Sogo, and Paul E. Wilson

2. Introduction 1 High school is an important period in which students must make a number of decisions that will impact their transition into adulthood. Students who leave high school with more focused career interests, realistic evaluations of their own interests and aptitudes, and who have taken part in activities to strengthen their career knowledge are more likely to succeed in meeting their postsecondary educational and career goals (Gray, 2009). Rural youth often face challenges in meeting such milestones due to a variety of contextual factors unique to rural communities. For example, rural youth typically face higher rates of poverty, restricted curriculum offerings, fewer opportunities to come into contact with adults in professional and technical careers, and less availability of career counseling and career exploration opportunities in both the school and community, to name a few (Crockett, Shanahan, & Jackson-Newsom, 2000; Morrissette, 2000; Save the Children, 2002). Each of these factors can negatively impact career knowledge, which could contribute to rural youth having unrealistic expectations about their futures. Few studies to date have focused on the educational and occupational aspirations of rural youth, particularly the degree of congruence between rural youth’s future educational and occupational aspirations.

3. Theoretical Perspective 2 To better understand the ambitions of today’s youth, Schneider and Stevenson (1999) introduced into the literature the concept of aligned ambitions. Youth who express educational aspirations that are appropriate given their intended career paths are considered to have aligned ambitions. Those youth who over or underestimate the level of education needed for their intended career paths are considered to have misaligned ambitions. Schneider and Stevenson argue that greater attention should be placed on the relationship between educational and occupational aspirations, particularly the level of alignment that youth have between these aspirations, instead of considering them separately. Using data from a nationally representative sample, Schneider and Stevenson found that 43.7% of adolescents overestimated the level of education needed to meet their career goals (over aligned), while 16.1% underestimated the level of education needed to meet their career goals (under aligned). Only 40.2% of these youth had aligned educational and occupational aspirations. The strength of the aligned ambition approach to understanding the relationship between educational and occupational aspirations is that students’ self-reported aspirations are measured against independent criteria (i.e., level of education needed for a particular job). In addition, all students are capable of having aligned ambitions regardless of the type of occupation or level of education they desire. Finally, this approach views educational and occupational aspirations as related rather than independent. For these reasons, the aligned ambition perspective was used in the current study.

4. Purpose and Goals of Study 3 The current study follows in the footsteps of Schneider and Stevenson (1999) by focusing specifically on how far students say they want to go in school and how this relates to the types of careers they hope to achieve. From this perspective, the focus is on whether students have realistic aspirations based on the correspondence between educational and occupational aspirations, regardless of how high or low these aspirations may be. The current study seeks to extend the work of Schneider and Stevenson by exploring the issue of alignment using data collected from a recent national sample of rural high school youth. To that end, the current study will explore the level of alignment that rural youth have between their educational and occupational aspirations. This study uniquely contributes to the literature in three ways. First, few studies to date have considered the educational and occupational aspirations or rural youth in general. Those studies that have addressed the aspirations of rural youth are based largely on information collected over 20 years ago (e.g., Cobb, 1989; Apostal & Bilden, 1991; Haller & Virkler, 1993) that may no longer accurately reflect current conditions in rural America. Second, this study is among the first to use the aligned ambition paradigm to study rural youth. This approach is unique in that it will further our understanding of aspirations of rural youth by providing an index of how realistic these aspirations are based on independent career requirement criteria. Finally, this study replicates and extends the work of Schneider and Stevenson by exploring several individual, family, and school level factors that may influence ambition alignment.

5. Methods 4 This study is part of a broader national investigation to examine preparation for the transition to adulthood in rural high schools across the United States. Data were collected during the 2007-2008 academic year. Youth in grades 9 – 12 were recruited from 73 randomly selected rural and small town schools. Participants This study included 3020 (55.4% girls, 44.6% boys) in grades 11 and 12. The largest self-identified ethnic and racial groups included Whites (72.1%), Hispanics or Latinos (9.5%), African Americans (6.4%), and Native Americans (3.4%). In addition, 8.5% of students identified themselves as multi-racial.

6. 5 Measures Educational aspirations. Students were asked to indicate how far in school they would most like to go. Possible answers ranged from “less than high school graduation” to “Ph.D., M.D., or equivalent.” Students who reported “I don’t know” were excluded from analysis. Occupational aspirations. Students were asked to indicate if they planned to work at age 30. If so, they were asked to write the job or career they would most like to have at age 30. Open ended responses were coded into occupational categories and then coded by minimum level of education needed to obtain the reported occupation (coding procedures discussed below). Student achievement. To assess student achievement, teachers where asked to report on each student’s grades for the previous year on an eight-point scale ranging from “Mostly A’s” to “Below D’s.” Positive school valuing and academic self-concept. Students were asked a series of questions to assess their sense of value for education in the present and future as well as their perceptions of their academic competence in multiple school subjects. The items were adapted from other measures such as scales created by Voelkl (1999), Lapan et al., (2001) and Jodl et al., (2001). Cronbach’s alpha for positive school valuing was .85 and academic self-concept was .73.

7. 6 Measures (cont.) Parent involvement. Parent involvement was assessed with one five point item: “During the past year how often have you had discussions with your parents/guardians about careers and work?” Parents’ level of education. Students were asked to report the highest level of education that both parents/guardians received. Choices ranged from “Did not finish high school” to “Completed a Ph.D., M.D., or other advanced professional degree.” Students could also report “Don’t know.” For analysis purposes, the parent/guardian with the highest level of education was used in the regression model. Family economic hardship. Students were asked to report on their family’s economic hardship using adapted items from multiple sources (i.e., Conger et al., 1999; Elder et al., 1995; Wadsworth & Compas, 2002). The scale measured the constraints felt by the student relating to difficulty over paying bills and struggles with having enough money to buy items for the family. Cronbach’s alpha for this factor was .88.

8. 7 Data Coding Procedures In order to create ambition alignment groups all open-ended occupational aspiration questions were coded into major occupational groupings used by many governmental agencies (Stevens & Cho, 1985). These coded occupational responses were further coded by minimum level of education needed for entry into the intended occupation using a classification system similar to those used in previous studies of rural youth (see Haller & Virkler, 1993). Occupations were coded into four categories: less than high school, high school or some college, college, or advanced degree required. The original educational aspiration responses were collapsed into the same four categories so that educational aspirations could be compared to occupational aspirations. Those students who had educational aspirations that met the minimum requirement for their occupational aspirations were classified as having aligned ambitions. Students who aspired to more education than would be needed for their occupational aspirations were classified as having over-aligned ambitions. Students who had educational aspirations that were below the minimum needed for their occupational aspirations were classified as having under-aligned ambitions. For the regression analysis, students with slightly over aligned ambitions (e.g., a student aspiring to complete a 4-year degree when only a two year degree is needed) were recoded into the aligned group to focus on those with extreme over and under alignment (see Table 1).

9. 8 Results Overall, 1200 (39.7%) rural students had educational and occupational ambitions that were aligned, whereas 262 (8.7%) had educational aspirations that would be insufficient to meet their occupational aspirations. The majority of students 1558 (51.6%) had educational aspirations that were greater than the minimum level needed for their occupational aspirations.See Figure 1. A multinomial logistic regression was used to explore the relationship between student, family, and school level variables and ambition alignment (Table 2). The first column shows the relationship between the predictors on being in the under-aligned vs. aligned group. The second column shows the relationship between the predictors on being in the over-aligned vs. aligned group. Girls and Native Americans were more likely to be in the under-aligned vs. aligned group. In addition, students with lower grades and lower academic self-concept were more likely to be in the under-aligned vs. aligned group. Finally, students of parents with lower levels of education and those who talked less often with parents about their futures were more likely to be in the under-aligned group. Native American students were more likely to be in the over-aligned vs. aligned group. In addition, students of parents with higher levels of education and students with greater perceived family hardship were more likely to be in the over-aligned vs. aligned group. No other significant differences were found.

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13. 12 Discussion The results of this study provide a number of important findings. First, these data suggest that the students in this sample are slightly more over-aligned than the sample in the Schneider and Stevenson (1999) study. This may reflect true differences between rural youth and youth in more urban and suburban populations. However, these findings (based on a more recent sample) may reflect the fact that youth today are increasingly experiencing pressure to continue their post-secondary education regardless of whether this push is linked with their own career aspirations (Rosenbaum, 2004). Also, this rise in over-alignment may reflect the pressure that youth face due to a perceived increase in the level of education needed to be competitive in the current job market (Goyette, 2008). While these results suggest that rural youth are more over-aligned, but less under-aligned compared to Schneider and Stevenson’s findings, this study also highlights the fact that the majority of rural students (approximately 80%) have aligned or slightly over-aligned ambitions. Only about 20% of rural students in this study have problematic misalignment.

14. 13 By focusing on students with the greatest level of ambition misalignment, this study found a number of individual and family level variables related to alignment status. While parents’ level of education was related to both over and under-alignment, under-alignment appears to be related to academic performance and academic self-concept, while over-alignment is related more to family economic hardship. In addition, gender is related to under-alignment, while Native American students are more likely to be both over and under-aligned. This study provides new information about the ambitions of rural youth; however, further research is needed using the aligned ambition paradigm to determine if differences between rural and non-rural youth exist. Such an investigation can also further clarify if the individual and family level differences found in this study are specific to the rural context (e.g., the over-representation of girls in the under-alignment group) or apply to youth in other contexts as well.

15. Funding Source 14 This poster is based on research conducted by National Research Center on Rural Education Support (NRCRES) at the University of North Carolina. This work was supported by grant #R305A04056 from the Institute of Education Sciences. The authors are responsible the contents of this poster. No statement in this poster should be construed as an official position of the granting agency.