'Students who think high attain higher level of education'

Updated on: Sunday, November 07, 2010

Ambitious students who think about their futures during their high school years tend to reach higher levels of educational attainment, a new study revealed.

Researchers at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln, who surveyed hundreds of high school students about their career goals and expectations, found a unique relationship between their study plans and professional ambitions.

And those goals and expectations are shaped better by the kind of extracurricular activities they are engaged in, found the study published in journal Developmental Psychology.

That unique relationship, the researchers said, played a role in predicting how far teens eventually went with their educations.

"Adolescents' expectations about their occupational and educational attainment as adults predict their eventual educational attainment, and these expectations seem to shape and be shaped by extracurricular activities -- which, in turn, contribute to young adult educational attainment," said Sarah Beal, a UNL graduate student in psychology and the study's lead author.

"It may be the case that adolescents learn about their abilities and preferences through the extracurricular activities they engage in, resulting in changes to their
expectations for the future."

The longitudinal study, which tracked students from adolescence into adulthood, showed that what adolescents think about their futures is relevant for their development through adulthood.

It suggests that students can use their projections about the future to adapt their behaviour in ways that promote achievement later in life, said the researchers.

"There is a longstanding notion that what adolescents do sets the stage for their adult lives. Our results support this idea and indicate that what they think matters as well," said co-author Lisa Crockett, a professor of psychology.

What appears to happen, Crockett said, is that teenagers' plans influence their behaviours, especially extracurricular activities, which in turn influence their educational attainment.

"When you consider how important educational attainment is for adult life -- its relation to occupational attainment, financial security, health, and other aspects of well being --it appears that the steps adolescents take have important implications for their future success," she said.

'Students who think high attain higher level of education'

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