Literature Review #5: I Wish I Had (Not) Taken a Gap-Year? The Psychological and Attainment Outcomes of Different Post-School Pathways.


Citation:

 Parker, Philip D., et al. “I Wish I Had (Not) Taken a Gap-Year? The Psychological and Attainment Outcomes of Different Post-School Pathways.” Developmental Psychology, vol. 51, no. 3, American Psychological Association, 2015, pp. 323–33, doi:10.1037/a0038667.

 Summary:

This paper conducts a longitudinal study on individuals from Finland and Australia, following them starting from high school and continuing until they age they would be halfway through college. The purpose of this study was to see how students who took a gap year had their academic trajectories affected. This was calculated based on their academic achievement, as well as their personal development. Based on several metrics, including degree completion and personality scores of life satisfaction, they found little measurable improvement.

Author:

Philip D. Parker is a professor for the Institute of Positive Psychology and Education for the Australian Catholic University. He has published numerous papers focusing on "career pathways, educational attainment, and individual differences related to youths' transitions from school to work or further education," and has utilized longitudinal databases for these cases.

Key Terms:

The most important term in this paper is the "Life Span Theory of Control," which suggests that "goal-seeking" opportunities available to students decrease as a function of time. This is the reason why Parker advocates for students transitioning directly from high school from college instead of delaying it, since there are more opportunities in a university environment.

These "goal reorienting" opportunities are a similar key term to the idea of identity work and cultural capital, but a clear distinction is made in terms of how to best access these opportunities. According to Parker, goal reorienting is best accomplished during the process in which students decide what classes to take and what college to attend.

Quote:

"Likewise, Heckhausen and Tomasik (2002) indicated that although a number of transitions have developmental deadlines, the post school transition for vocational track individuals is particularly narrow with opportunities rapidly diminishing such that those who fail to make the transition in a timely manner may be “doomed to unskilled work for their entire lives” (p. 201)." (p 324)

"From the perspective of life span theory of control, goal engagement allows individuals to capitalize on success or reorientate goals in the face of failure. Delaying transitions is risky as opportunities become increasingly sparse and constraints increase. Put simply, life span theory of control hypothesizes opportunities as a function of age, rising sharply at the point at which biological, social, and cultural systems and institutions deem is appropriate before declining rapidly." (p. 325)

"Using two large longitudinal databases of young people fol-lowed from at least the last year of high school provided mixed results. Results indicated that for similar youth there was no difference in goal engagement, satisfaction with life, satisfaction with career, or future prospects between gap-year and direct entry groups of adolescents." (p. 330)

Value:

 This research paper serves as a good counterexample to many other claims regarding the touted benefits of a college gap year. However, one element the paper fails to touch on is the nature of the gap years some of these students took. As discussed ad nauseum, there is a crucial difference between the sort of gap years student takes based on their socioeconomic status. However, the paper could symbolize the "death" of the gap year, as one argument the author makes is that employers have begun to care less about gap year experiences between high school and college.

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Research Blog #10: Abstract and Works Cited

The Covid Gap Year: How the COVID-19 Pandemic Exacerbates Anxieties About Higher Education Abstract The COVID-19 pandemic has led to significant declines in college enrollments by low-income students caused by changes in family finances that have forced many to delay or pause their college attendance. Meanwhile, low-income students who have continued with college often suffer increased anxiety and difficulty keeping up with online instruction due to the digital divide. This paper examines whether a COVID-19 gap year is a viable option for low-income students, especially those who can use it to do identity work, by which they can obtain individualized cultural capital that will help them to complete college later but more quickly than other low-income students. The paper makes the argument that although the gap year option has traditionally been exercised by more affluent students, even low-income students can benefit from the experience if they can find meaningful identity work to
Read more

Research Blog #4: Research Proposal

  (This proposal is unchanged from the original draft, apologies for publishing this late) Sean Park Professor Michael Goeller Research in Disciplines: College! 19 February 2021 Research Proposal 1) Working Title Gap Years and Dropping Out: How the COVID-19 Pandemic Exacerbates Anxieties About Higher Education, Especially Among Lower Income Families 2) Topic Description One of the many side effects that came with the onset of the recent pandemic was the drastic drop in student enrollment in higher education. The early months of the stay-at-home orders were characterized by schools scrambling to transition to online learning, with varying degrees of success based on the preexisting infrastructure they had. Anxieties about the pandemic and changes to schools during this time have prompted many students to take a gap year or drop out entirely to seek out more meaningful experiences or careers. An article from the Wall Street Journal noted how many students took a leave of
Read more

Initial Topic Ideas

Image
Mind the gap. The first two weeks of class have given me a lot of ideas for interesting topics to write about, but for right now I have two specific ideas I have been developing in my head. Topic 1: Gap Years, Dropping Out, and Transferring This is a topic I have a personal investment in, since I have experienced or have had people close to me experience these dramatic shifts in their academic trajectory within the past few years. I would like to explore the statistics for how many students go through with these options, for what reasons, and how it has affected their prospects afterwards. I expect this topic to intersect with topics of mental health and the anxiety that comes with going to college, which I intend to fully analyze. Ultimately, I want to answer the following questions: Why do students go down these paths, if they aren't forced to? How does going down these paths affect someone's future prospects and well-being? When would it be a good time to think about these o
Read more