Deciding on a college major : Commitment trajectories, career exploration, and academic well-being

Kurzfassung/Abstract

In this weekly diary study we followed thirty-three adolescents through the transition from school to college and focused on the micro-level processes of commitment and exploration while adolescents decided on their college major. Between their final exams at school and their enrolment in college they completed standardized diaries once a week. Nine months later at the end of their first semester in college, adolescents reported on their academic well-being (satisfaction with college major, perceived fit regarding interests and expectations, and drop-out intentions). We assigned the participants to one of three theoretically derived commitment trajectories: decided (adolescents who had committed themselves to one option early in the process and implemented their choice), narrowing (adolescents who narrowed down to one favorite option), and searching (adolescents with low and changing commitments), and found meaningful differences in exploration processes and subsequent academic well-being. Searching adolescents explored particularly little in-depth information about their future studies and showed worse academic well-being than decided and narrowing adolescents.