Tracking adolescent students’ educational pathways to university through school engagement, parental expectations, and student aspirations

Abstract Although improvements have been made in terms of enhancing the number of students that enrol in higher education, the long-term educational pathways of adolescents to university studies are understudied. This calls for further research into the mechanisms that underpin the long-term educational pathways of adolescents who study at university versus those who do not. The present study examines an innovative model that tracks adolescents’ educational pathways to university in England through the developmental dynamics of emotional school engagement, parental educational expectations, and adolescent aspirations. The data came from 9173 adolescents (51.63% female) from six waves of the Next Steps cohort study in England. The data were analysed using longitudinal structural equation modelling and cross-lagged panel modelling. The results of random-intercept cross-lagged panel modelling revealed positive within-person reciprocal relations between emotional engagement, parental educational expectations, and adolescent university aspirations only between specific ages. Latent regression analysis showed that greater levels of sustained parental expectations, emotional school engagement, and adolescent university aspirations were linked to greater likelihood of pursuing university-entrance exams (A-Levels, age 17). Sustained engagement had only an indirect effect on university attendance via university-entrance exams and educational persistence (age 18). Sustained high parental educational expectations were the most direct and robust predictor of adolescents’ university attendance. The findings underscore a synergistic effect between sustained parental expectations, emotional school engagement, and adolescent university aspirations as the mechanisms that lead adolescents to university studies.