This study aims to examine whether more useful career education experience at high school leads to developing more active and specific motivation for college-going, which in turn leads to better adjustment to college both academically and socially. For this purpose, this study conducts path analysis, using data drawn from the 6th and 7th waves of the 2005 Korean Education Longitudinal Study (KELS).
The study finds that more useful career education experience at high school has a direct effect on more active and specific motivation for college-going, which is valid even after controlling for the confounding effect of gender, parental support, and college aptitude test result. It also shows that useful career education experience at high school has a statistically significant effect on better adjustment to college both directly and indirectly through the mediating variable of college-going motivation. Yet, this study finds that career education experience at high school has insignificant direct effects on academic performance in college; it only indirectly affects academic performance, the effect of which is mediated by reasons for going to college.