Motivated by future and challenges: A cross-cultural study on adolescents' investment in learning and career planning

Abstract

This three-wave cross-cultural study tested a cross-cultural model that related adolescents' Regulatory Focus (RF) and Future Time Perspective on School and Professional Career (FTP) to their educational and career behaviors, and explored whether these relationships are equivalent across countries. Specifically, it addressed the challenging question whether adolescents' motivational orientations differ across countries with vastly different cultural values, socio-economic circumstances and history. A total of 1520 adolescents in the Netherlands, Serbia, and Croatia reported their parents' and their own RF (promotion and prevention), FTP on school and professional career, investment in learning and homework, and career planning, on three time points. Teachers assessed adolescents' investment in learning and provided adolescents' GPA. Based on the multi-group structural equation modeling results, we found good model fits for each country and confirmation of most hypotheses. Results supported that the hypothesized model was cross-culturally valid in the three countries, although FTP related differently to GPA and teacher ratings across the samples. Also, we revealed intriguing differences on adolescents' FTP and RF strategies across the three countries. The findings suggest that FTP and RF play an important role in the learning efforts and career planning of adolescents across different countries.