Adolescents’ Self-Concordance, School Engagement, and Burnout Predict Their Educational Trajectories 1This paper is part of a series on “Youth Development in Europe: Transitions and Identities” that will appear in the European Psychologist throughout 2008 and 2009. Taken together, the papers aim to make a conceptual contribution to the increasingly important area of youth development, especially within the context of an expanding Europe, by focusing on variations and changes in the transition to adulthood and emerging identities. The series will conclude with a summary by the organizers of the series, Katariina Salmela-Aro (University of Jyväskylä, Finland) and Ingrid Schoon (University of London, UK).

This study investigated whether self-concordance of adolescents’ achievement-related goal predicts their school engagement and lack of burnout during upper secondary school as well as their subsequent educational trajectories. We also examined whether goal effort and progress mediate these associations. The sample consisted of 614 17-year-old upper secondary school students, who were surveyed three times: (1) in the second grade of upper secondary, (2) in the third grade of upper secondary school, and (3) one year later. The results showed that when adolescents pursued their achievement-related goal for internal reasons, they also invested effort in their goal, which was reflected in a high level of goal progress. Among girls, goal progress predicted a high level of school engagement during upper secondary school and, subsequently, success in the educational transition after upper secondary school, whereas low goal progress was related to school burnout, which in turn was reflected later on in delay in studies and low educational aspirations.