Empowerment in the Transition to Adulthood: Supporting Career Exploration in College Using Participatory Design

Developmental challenges in the transition to adulthood call for a process of empowerment that supports young people in guiding themselves and building capacities toward adult commitments and roles. The purpose of this study is to investigate empowerment in emerging adulthood, aiming to develop interventions to promote college student developmental outcomes, particularly in career exploration processes.

A process of theory construction generated an innovative model of developmental empowerment in the transition to adulthood. Empowerment is conceptualized as a systemic process that emerges through the ongoing interaction between individual and relational environment. Empowerment constructs include personal agency and sense of purpose (as internal experiences), and mentoring and engagement in community (as external experiences).

In the first study, a survey investigated empowering experiences in college among Virginia Tech students (N= 255). The findings support the theoretical model, confirming the salience and interdependence of the four main empowerment constructs. Preliminary evidence suggests relevant connections among the empowerment constructs and outcomes such as definition of life goals and career identity. Additionally, qualitative findings offered insights about the role of mentors and community in relation to empowerment.

In its second phase, the research project narrowed the focus to study how the empowerment framework may be used to support the process of career exploration in college. The final study integrates the conceptual model and findings from the first study in a participatory design-based intervention for Virginia Tech first-year students exploring career options (N=126). A series of workshops generated an extensive data collection, yielding further investigation about empowerment, definition of life goals and career identity. Qualitative and quantitative data analysis demonstrate that the intervention improved scores for agency and purpose, besides improving student career adapting responses, major decidedness, and progress in career choice. Participants also advanced self-knowledge and purpose-driven orientation, and developed personal criteria for choice of major and career.