Student university outcomes : do personal attributes and environmental factors matter?

Abstract

In the field of educational psychology, much research has revealed the process and determinants of individual development in general university environments. However, limited research attention has been paid to student development in specific academic majors in university. In order to contribute to the literature on such an issue, the present research focused on student development within specific academic majors. In particular, the present research explored 1) the relationship of vocational interests and external forces to students’ university outcomes (as represented by academic performance, subjective well-being, and willingness to persist in current academic major) in specific academic majors; 2) the mediating effects of motivation and integration in the aforementioned relationship; and 3) the change of vocational interests during students’ development in their academic majors. The present research adopted a quantitatively-driven mixed method design and it contained three phases. Phase I was a pilot study that aimed at validating the inventories to be used in the main study and preliminarily examining the relationships between the key variables in the research. The pilot study involved 484 university students from Nanjing Normal University (NJNU), Nanjing, P. R. China. Phase II was the main study of the research and it consisted of two waves of data collection. The main study was conducted to further explore the relationships among the key variables and to investigate the change of vocational interests over one year. Nine hundred and twelve university students, who studied in three different academic majors – fine arts, business, and biological science in NJNU, responded the inventories validated in the pilot study; one year later, 561 of the students responded to the same inventories again. Phase III of the research was a follow-up study. In the follow-up study, individual interviews were conducted with 18 students who had participated in both waves of data collection of the main study. The purpose of the follow-up study was to further interpret the findings of the main study and to explore why and how, if any, vocational interests had changed during one-year learning in specific academic majors. Findings of the research essentially confirmed the research hypotheses. First, vocational interests significantly predicted university outcomes among students from three different academic majors. Second, the supports and barriers students perceived from the large context external to their academic majors served as considerable contributors to student university outcomes. Third, both motivation and integration mediated the relationship of vocational interests and external forces to student university outcomes. Fourth, students’ vocational interests statistically significantly changed during their process of learning in their academic majors. Specifically, students’ vocational interests changed to be less congruent with the settings of their academic majors after learning for one year in their academic majors in university. Findings of the research have contributed to the limited literature on student development within academic majors. Findings also have practical implications for teachers and student development educators in their efforts to help university students to deal with stress and make decisions on issues related to their university development.