In the United States, there is an increasing focus on preparing students earlier in their educational studies for specific careers through skill training and career exploration. Schools are providing more and different types of work-based learning experiences, vocational coursework, career preparation opportunities, and postsecondary support to students in hopes of improving their employability. These experiences may encourage students to engage in more purposeful and focused career thought and enhance their wellbeing. While wellbeing is a multi-dimensional construct, this study focuses on occupational wellbeing as it relates to career thought and the educational supports and experiences offered by schools. Social cognitive career theory provides a lens by which to understand the development of career thought and wellbeing through work-based learning (WBL) activities in secondary school. SCCT identifies three factors that help individuals develop career thought: self-efficacy, outcome expectations, and personal goals. Using a nationally representative dataset—the Education Longitudinal Study of 2002 (ELS)—this study responds to the following research questions linking WBL participation to well-being as measured by career-goal alignment and job satisfaction in early career: 1. What factors influence participation in work-based learning experiences in high school? 2. How do WBL experiences in high school influence individuals’ feelings about the relationship between early career occupation and long-term goals? 3. How do WBL experiences in high school influence job satisfaction in early career? Using school-fixed effects models to account for unobserved between-school differences as well as a robust set of additional student covariates, we find the SCCT variables of self-efficacy and expectation of school to develop skills for employment to be significant predictors of participation in WBL. We find that only certain types of WBL are significantly related to this career-goal alignment: cooperative education, and completion of a predetermined sequence of vocational courses. Meanwhile, only cooperative education was significantly linked to higher job satisfaction, while mentorship was associated with significantly associated with lower job satisfaction in early career. These findings present some implications worth considering. First, WBL appears to be beneficial with respect to occupational outcome, though this is dependent on type of WBL. Second, WBL participation is relatively even across student demographics and academic histories. Finally, school and family contexts have relatively little influence on occupational well-being. All told, promoting career thought and development for secondary students is likely to have significant benefits later in life. Work-based learning is one avenue by which to achieve these goals.

Bandura, A. (1986). Social foundations of thought and action: A social cognitive theory. Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice-Hall, Inc.