What’s Your Vocation? A Meta-Analysis of Interventions Tackling Youth Educational and Professional Identity

Abstract

Choices related to educational and professional identity are critical in defining how adolescents and emerging adults find an area of study and a future occupation that may fit their interests, talents, and aspirations. This meta-analysis aimed to comprehensively identify psychosocial interventions promoting youth educational and professional identity and critically appraise their effectiveness. Studies could be published in any language and year, and both journal articles and gray literature were considered. Multiple search strategies were applied to identify eligible studies. A total of 17 studies, comprising 3,617 participants (ninterventions = 1,049; ncontrol = 2,568), were included in the meta-analysis. Results highlighted that interventions were effective, with medium effect sizes, for both educational (Cohen’s d = 0.56 [0.35; 0.77], p <.001) and professional (first follow-up: d = 0.51 [0.38; 0.64], p <.001; last follow-up: d = 0.63 [0.42; 0.84], p <.001) identity. To tackle for whom and under which conditions interventions were more effective, moderating analyses were performed. However, moderating factors related to the characteristics of the samples (e.g. gender composition, mean age of participants) and the interventions (e.g. duration, time-lag between baseline and first follow-up) were found to be non-significant. Guidelines for future intervention research are discussed.