Adolescents' experience of a life-framing decision

High school students participating in a year-long longitudinal study of the college decision-making process described their experiences in open-ended essays, and rated their reactions to the process on several different Likert scales. Students' certainty in the decision and readiness to make a decision rose over time. As the process continued, students reported increasing satisfaction with the information they had obtained, and more comfort with the process itself. However, overall levels of reported enjoyment of the process were low to moderate, and overall ratings of the stressfulness of the decision remained high. Students gave evidence of seeing this decision as a life-framing one.This project was funded by The Spencer Foundation and by the National Institute of Child Health and Human Development (HD-28177-R15), both to Kathleen M. Galotti. We gratefully acknowledge the assistance of Stephanie Aubry, Jessica Bresler, Laura Gibson, Julie Greene, Ruby Hou, Perrin Klumpp, Jodi Matthes, Jennifer McGregor, Nancy Michelsen, Terrance Overby, Amy Prullage, Melissa Schneider, Katherine Seiden, Daniel Simons, and Meghan Wilhelm for gathering and coding data. We also thank the principals, guidance counselors, and teachers at the cooperating schools for helping us recruits students and schedule surveys.Received a Ph.D. in psychology and an M.S.E. in computer and information sciences from the University of Pennsylvania. Current research interests include everyday reasoning and decision making, and the development of these skills.Received a Ph.D. in counseling and guidance from the University of Wisconsin, Madison. Research interests are in adolescent development and adolescent psychopathology.