A latent transition analysis examining the nature of and movement between career adaptability profiles

Research on career adaptability has mainly relied on a variable-centered approach, focusing on the average effects of its four resource dimensions (i.e., concern, control, confidence, and curiosity) in relation to antecedents and outcomes within a given sample. A complementary approach is person-centered research (i.e., mixture models). Following 93 university students across an 11-week service-learning project, we collected data about students' career adaptability resources in three waves (at the beginning, middle, and completion of the project). Our analyses identified unique subgroups with distinct profiles of career adaptability resources that differed in level (i.e., low career adaptability, average career adaptability and high career adaptability), but not in shape. We then explored the patterns of movement and stability in these three profiles over time using latent transition analysis. Data about personal (i.e., regulatory focus: prevention and promotion focus) and situational (i.e., challenge and hindrance stressors) factors were collected to help explain the transitional probabilities for stability and change in profiles over time. The negative valence predictors (i.e., prevention focus and hindrance stressors) did not play a role in explaining the transitional probabilities between profiles, whereas the positive valence predictors (i.e., promotion focus and challenge stressors) did – a finding also relevant to the literature on developmental tasks as instigators of young people developing their career adaptability. Overall, these findings suggest that the person-centered approach can be a useful method to analyze change and stability in career adaptability profiles.