Educational trajectory and "action orientation": Grade and track differences.

A life-span developmental perspective suggests that variations in social context will lead to differences among individuals in their "action orientations." An action orientation is defined by an individual's values, control beliefs, goal orientation, and decision-making perspective. To investigate differences in the action orientations of adolescents embedded in different contexts, 83 sophomore and senior high school students on either a vocational training or college-preparatory trajectory participated in the study. A discriminant function analysis of action orientations showed that the action orientations of vocational training and college-preparatory students differed: College-preparatory students had a "career preparation" action orientation and vocational students had an "adult preparation" action orientation; also, sophomores may have had a "socializing" orientation. The findings are discussed in terms of the developmental tasks facing students in different grades and on different life-course trajectories.