Navigating transitions: A longitudinal exploration of career decision-making process dynamics in adolescents

In times of changing labor markets and rapid technological development, individuals are repeatedly faced with career decision-making to manage frequent and complex transitions within and between learning and work. Thus, it is crucial to understand the dynamic process of career decision-making. Career decision-making models propose specific sequences of key aspects, such as actions of career exploration, gaining career knowledge, and making a career decision. However, how such key aspects are related over time remains not well understood. In this six-wave longitudinal study across 30 months, we investigate the intra-personal dynamics between career self management actions (i.e., environmental exploration), career knowledge (i.e., labor market knowledge), and attitudes (i.e., career decidedness). Based on a sample of 1132 students in 8th grade in Switzerland, we tested a random intercept cross-lagged panel model (RI-CLPM) to examine within-person dynamics while accounting for stable between-person differences. We found a dynamic link between these variables, in that increases in environmental career exploration predicted subsequent increases in career knowledge and career decidedness. Moreover, increased career knowledge and career decidedness predicted subsequent increases in environmental exploration. We discuss the findings considering a dynamic intra-person approach to understanding the career decision-making process. • In a six-wave longitudinal study among 1132 adolescents, we explored the dynamics in the career decision-making process. • We examined within-person changes in decidedness, exploration, and knowledge, controlling for stable trait-like aspects. • We found support for assumed dynamics between environmental exploration, career knowledge, and career decidedness. • Increases in environmental career exploration predicted subsequent increases in career knowledge and career decidedness. • Increases in career knowledge and career decidedness predicted subsequent increases in environmental exploration.