Realistic major previews in the school-to-college transition of Italian high school students.

Industrial/organizational researchers have reported that realistic job previews diminish prospective workers' expectations but promote the satisfaction and persistence of those who ultimately accept a job assignment. The authors applied this strategy to the context of school-to-college transition; 354 Italian high school students were provided with a 2-hour lecture designed to simulate exposure to a college major of their choice. Students showed moderate pre-post increases in subject matter knowledge but reported small decreases in interests and outcome expectations (but not self-efficacy) related to the academic major to which they were exposed.

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Many students enter college uncertain of their academic or career directions. Some may be entirely undecided about an academic major; others may have decided at least tentatively on a major. For instance, in Italy, the location of the present study, roughly one third of high school seniors in a recent study were found to be undecided about their academic or career choices, and another 41% were tentatively decided (Nota & Soresi, 2003). Regardless of their decisional status, most college-bound students could probably profit from greater access to information about academic majors in which they are interested and the careers to which these majors can lead.

Indeed, a lack of information is a common source of educational-vocational indecision, and provision of practical information about choice options has been found to be a critical ingredient of decision-making interventions (Brown & Ryan Krane, 2000). Yet, although increasing knowledge of the world of work and training opportunities have been goals of vocational interventions dating back to Parsons (1909), and recent technological advances have enhanced potential access to educational-vocational information (Gore & Hitch, 2005), many students still approach the transition from high school to work or college with limited systematic exposure to prospective academic/career options.

In the industrial/organizational psychology literature, realistic job previews have been developed to provide prospective workers with accurate information about a given job or work organization. Such previews present both favorable and unfavorable aspects of a job, with the intent of ensuring that those who accept a position "do so with accurate and realistic expectations" (Spector, 1996, p. 150). Meta-analytic findings suggest that such previews actually reduce initial job expectations and the number of job offers that are accepted by applicants (Premack & Wanous, 1985). However, they also yield less employee turnover and promote greater job performance (Phillips, 1998), perhaps by helping to screen out individuals who would have fit the job less well had they accepted it. Thus, realistic job previews appear to offer a useful and cost-effective informational intervention that benefits both individuals and work organizations, thereby reducing problems associated with poor person-job fit. Although such previews would also seem to hold promise for helping students make informed choices about academic courses and majors, there has been little study of this method in the educational context (Brinthaupt, 2004).

In the present study, we adapted the realistic job preview approach to the context of academic field exploration. Specifically, instructors at a large Italian university were recruited to teach 2-hour classes in their areas of specialization to high school seniors who were planning to attend college in the following year. The classes were designed to provide a realistic preview of the subject matter and instructional environment in a variety of academic fields. Students were invited to attend a class in a field of their choice. The instructional preview was followed by a brief exam, testing students' knowledge of material covered in the class they had attended. The purpose of this exam was to give students an idea of the types of exams they might expect in each major. In addition, students completed measures of expectations (self-efficacy and outcome expectations), subject matter interest, and subject matter knowledge both before and after the realistic major preview.

On the basis of the realistic job preview literature, we expected that participants would, on the whole, show pre-post increases in subject matter knowledge but decreases in interests and expectations (self-efficacy and outcome expectations). We based these "sadder but wiser" hypotheses on findings that realistic job previews tend to lower initial expectations (Phillips, 1998), presumably by providing many participants with a more accurate basis for their beliefs. That is, in the absence of previews, participants may hold unrealistically positive views of their prospective choices. However, it has also been found that the effect of realistic job previews may differ, depending on the level of previous job knowledge that participants possess (Spector, 1996). We, therefore, posited that interest, self-efficacy, and outcome expectations would show less change among participants with greater versus less prior knowledge of particular academic majors.

Finally, social cognitive career theory (Lent, Brown, & Hackett, 1994) holds that students tend to develop interests in activities and subject matter areas at which they feel efficacious and expect to obtain positive outcomes. Consistent with these hypotheses, research has shown that academic and career interests are well predicted by self-efficacy beliefs and outcome expectations (Lent, 2005; Lent et al., 1994). We adapted the social cognitive hypotheses in the present study, positing that students' interests in the academic fields to which they were exposed would be predicted by their self-efficacy and outcome expectations, after controlling for their level of knowledge about the fields.

We were interested in testing these latter hypotheses because previous research on the occupational aspirations of high school students is sometimes subject to the criticism that students' ratings are confounded by a lack of occupational knowledge (e.g., Lent, Brown, Nota, & Soresi, 2003). In the current study, we were able to address this problem by testing the prediction of interests after the realistic major preview, reasoning that the preview would offer some basic, common exposure to the academic fields and that students' interest, self-efficacy, and outcome expectations ratings would, therefore, likely be based on more accurate information.

Method

Participants and Measures

Participants were 354 students (279 girls, 75 boys) attending their final year of high school in the northeast region of Italy. Their mean age was 17.46 years (SD = 0.54). Both before and after attending a realistic major preview, they completed brief, investigator-developed measures of subject matter knowledge, interest, self-efficacy, and outcome expectations corresponding to the major field to which they were exposed. The subject matter knowledge measure consisted of three questions (e.g., "I understand what this academic major involves"); participants rated their agreement with each statement on a scale of 0-9, where 0 = strongly disagree and 9 = strongly agree. Coefficient alpha values at pretest and posttest assessments were, respectively, .87 and .86, suggesting adequate levels of internal consistency.

The interest measure asked students to indicate their level of agreement (0 = strongly disagree, 9 = strongly agree) with three items (e.g., "I am very interested in this academic major"). Coefficient alpha values at pretest and posttest were .80 and .83, respectively. Self-efficacy was measured with five items reflecting confidence at performing effectively in the major (e.g., "pass the exams of the first semester with good grades"). Students were asked to rate their degree of confidence on a scale ranging from 0 (not at all confident) to 9 (very confident). Pretest and posttest coefficient alpha estimates were .88 and .91, respectively. The outcome expectations measure contained 10 positive outcomes that could result from graduating with a degree in the academic major. Students indicated their degree of agreement (0 = strongly disagree, 9 = strongly agree) with each outcome statement (e.g., "get prestige and respect"). Coefficient alpha values were .88 at pretest and .90 at posttest.

All measures were constructed by us and administered in Italian. The interest, self-efficacy, and outcome expectations measures were patterned after similar measures used in social cognitive career theory research (e.g., see Lent & Brown, 2006). For each measure, item responses were summed and divided by the number of items, yielding scores that could range from 0 to 9, with higher scores reflecting more positive perceptions (e.g., greater subject matter knowledge, higher interest).

Procedure