Values and academic track choice in adolescence: validation of the value-based academic goals scale and relation to high-school track environments

Abstract High-school academic track choice is an early and consequential educational decision, yet little is known about how adolescents’ personal values are expressed in the goals that guide these choices. The present study examined how value-based academic goals are organized in adolescence and how they vary across academic tracks. Participants were 791 Israeli students in Grades 9–12. Students reported their personal values and completed the Value-Based Academic Goals Scale, which assesses school-related goals reflecting broad value orientations. Exploratory and confirmatory analyses supported a four-dimensional structure of value-based academic goals: self-enhancement, openness-to-change, conservation, and comfort. This structure partly reflected broad personal value theory, but also showed context-specific reorganization. In particular, self-transcendence did not emerge as a distinct academic-goal dimension, whereas a separate comfort dimension emerged, combining security, enjoyment, and ease in the school context. Associations with general personal values were modest, suggesting that academic goals are related to, but not reducible to, broader value orientations. Across tracks, self-enhancement and comfort were the most prominent goal dimensions, whereas conservation was consistently the least endorsed. Most importantly, students in different academic tracks also showed distinct goal profiles. Realistic and investigative-scientific tracks showed a self-enhancement-centered profile; artistic tracks, and more cautiously investigative-humanistic tracks, showed more comfort-oriented tendencies; social tracks showed high openness-to-change and comfort; and enterprising tracks combined high self-enhancement with high comfort. These findings suggest that academic track choice in adolescence reflects an early form of person-environment fit and may help educators and school counselors better support students’ track decisions.