"Making the Transition" Studies

Students who move right from high school into university face a number of new experiences in the arenas of academic work, making friends, establishing romantic partnerships, coping with autonomy and independence, and, for some, moving away from home. How well the student does in dealing with these challenges is likely important for future academic success. The Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada has funded us to conduct two studies examining how well first-year students are doing. Making the Transition I was a study conducted in fall of 2004, in which a sample of full-time first-year university students participated in a 14-day web-based daily diary study. These students logged onto the computer each night, and completed checklists telling us many things about their day, including, for example, what activities they engaged in, how they felt, how they slept, and the extent to which they socialized. With their permission, their academic records are tracked throughout their stay at the University of Alberta. The goal is to learn more about what kinds of daily experiences might have an impact on future academic success. Results will take some time to emerge.

Making the Transition II is a similar study. In this study, which began in fall of 2005, first-year students completed a web-based checklist at the end of every month across the academic year. They also completed a questionnaire at the end of their second, third, and fourth years of university to track how well they were doing over time. Official academic records were collected on these students with their permission. Again, we are interested in learning more about how the experiences of being a first-year student play into eventual success in university. We are grateful to these students for their commitment to our project, and for staying with us throughout the years.

Making the Transition Publications:

Edmonton Transitions Study

The transition to adulthood is a time of opportunity and challenge, as young people are required to make choices that will be very important for their futures. As interesting and exciting a period as this is, we really do not know all that much about how people experience this transition. For example, while we know that some psychological problems, such as depression, are relatively high during this period compared to other portions of the lifespan, there are very few longitudinal studies that have tracked the psychological well-being of the same group of young people over the course of the transition to adulthood. In a collaboration on the Edmonton Transitions Study we analyzed data from a large group of young people who were high school seniors in Edmonton in 1985, and who were followed several times through age 25. The good news was that the general psychological well-being of individuals improved as they moved from age 18 to age 25. Specif ically, depressive symptoms decreased, self-esteem increased, and expressions of anger decreased (Galambos, Barker, & Krahn, 2006). These results do not deny the importance of paying attention to difficulties that emerge during this period, but they do suggest positive changes in the emotional health of many young people. In a parallel study, a large group of University of Alberta graduating seniors was followed for seven years. This sample was busy moving into the work force, gaining further education, marrying, and having children. We found that in this sample, depressive and angry symptoms also decreased over time. Becoming a parent, however, was associated with increases in anger, especially among mothers (Galambos & Krahn, in press).

Edmonton Transitions Study Publications:

Healthy Youth Survey

Based at the University of Victoria, the Healthy Youth Survey is following a random, community-based sample of youth who were 12 to 18 years old when the study began in 2003. The sample participated in surveys and interviews in 2003, 2005, and 2007. These assessed a wide variety of youth behaviours and experiences including health and risk behaviours, injuries, family relationships, relations with peers and romantic partners, and views of themselves. In two consecutive studies, we have looked at the associations of adolescents' dating, sex, and substance use behaviors with their subjective age (or how old they feel). In the first study, based on 2003 data, we found that youth who felt older than their chronological ages were more likely to be dating an older partner and to be sexually experienced. Furthermore, smoking (in boys), higher alcohol use, and higher drug use were also related to feeling older (Arbeau, Galambos, & Jansson, 2007). In the second study, based on 2003 and 2005 data, we were able to determine that dating, sex, and alcohol and drug use seemed to precede increases in subjective age, that is, adolescents who engaged in these activities earlier on felt older later on. Feeling older, however, did not predict increases in dating, sex, and alcohol and drug use (Galambos, Albrecht, & Jansson, in press).

Healthy Youth Survey Publications:

RESEARCH METHODS IN THE YOUTH TRANSITIONS LAB

As proponents of a lifespan approach to the study of adolescence and the transition to adulthood, we can only adequately address the ways in which developing individuals belong to complex systems by including multiple occasions and variables in our research designs and multiple methods and levels in our analyses.

We have conducted intensive repeated measures studies where we collect data either daily for a period of time (2 weeks) or monthly, across a year. In some longitudinal studies, we have followed participants once a year or once every few years. These designs enable us to answer questions about short- and long-term changes in behaviour. Recently, we have used web-based methods to gather information from research participants.

Members of the Youth Transitions Lab are actively involved in learning and implementing sophisticated statistical techniques to account for complexity in human development. Multilevel regression analysis (commonly known as multilevel modeling) is a technique we have made particular use of in the past few years. Multilevel models permit the simultaneous examination of variation within persons across several repeated measures (intra-individual variation)and between persons (inter-individual variation; e.g., age and gender differences). By making use of multilevel models, we can examine trajectories of change in behaviours, emotions, and other measures, and we can examine how certain behaviours, feelings, attitudes, and other characteristics covary over time.