The Development Of Adolescents’ Occupation Planning In Early And Middle Adolescence And Its Relationship With Attribution

Even though future events motivate everyday behavior over a life-time，thinking andplanning for the future are particularly important for adolescents，because adolescence is atransitional period from childhood to adulthood. Adolescents’ occupation planning has been animportant research theme and the research of this field has been extensively studied bypsychological researchers，the results of which were fruitful. Although the large amount ofresearch literature has shed much light on the difference of adolescents’ occupation planningabout gender，grade，profession and so on，there are several important issues that need furtherclarify and investigate，including the differences not only in the average level of the sameperiod but also in the developmental pattern of adolescents’ occupation planning. Especially inrecent years，the relation between adolescents’ occupation planning and attribution has beenprofoundly promoted on the basis of the conclusions of the relation between adolescents’occupation planning and cognitive variables. Giving a careful scrutiny to the multitudinousresearches of this field，it can be found that most of the conclusions were drown in virtue ofcross-sectional researches. Longitudinal studies were seldom taken into account. Nowadays，exploring the development of adolescents’ occupation planning as well as the relation betweenadolescents’ occupation planning and attribution systematically and dynamically is of greatimportance to the research of adolescents’ occupation planning.The present study used a sample of 1039 students from 9 middle schools in Jinan andYantai，Shandong Province. They were surveyed to examine the longitudinal associations. Thedata includes the occupation planning and attribution scores of adolescents. Repeated measuresanalysis of variance and cross-lagged regression were conducted to analyze the development ofadolescents’ occupation planning and its relation with attribution respectively. The mainfindings of the study were as follows:1. In general level，adolescents’ occupation planning shows moderate correlation in two measurements from T1 to T2，and the stability degree of adolescents’ occupation planning’sdevelopment is significantly high.2. The stability degree of adolescents’ occupation planning’s development are significantlydifferent in grade and school type. The stability degree of senior middle school adolescents issignificantly greater than junior middle school adolescents’，and the stability degree of keymiddle school adolescents is significantly greater than ordinary middle school adolescents’.However，such significant difference in gender and urban-rural does not exist.3. The change of adolescents’ occupation planning shows no significant difference in differentgroup. But the occupation planning degree of junior middle school adolescents is significantlygreater than junior middle school adolescents’. The occupation planning degree of the urbanadolescents is significantly greater than the rural adolescents’. And the occupation planningdegree of the key middle school adolescents is significantly greater than the ordinary middleschool adolescents’. But such difference is not significant in different gender.4. Other variables controlled，adolescents’ occupation planning surveyed in 2007 can predictadolescents’ internal attribution in 2009，and adolescents’ internal attribution in 2007 also canpredict adolescents’ occupation planning surveyed in 2009，so it exists a bidirectionalrelationship between them. But the prediction between adolescents’ occupation planning andexternal attribution is not significant either in general or in further study.5. The prediction between adolescents’ occupation planning and internal attribution can besignificantly affected by gender and urban-rural. For boys，internal attribution in 2007 canpositively predict occupation planning in 2009，but for girls，internal attribution in 2007 cannotpositively predict occupation planning in 2009.And for urban adolescents，internal attribution in2007 cannot positively predict occupation planning in 2009，but for rural adolescents，internalattribution in 2007 can positively predict occupation planning in 2009.6. Grade and school type cannot significantly affect the prediction relationship betweenadolescents’ occupation planning and internal attribution.