Does interest fit between student and study program lead to better outcomes? A meta-analysis of vocational interest congruence as predictor for academic success

Abstract

Vocational interests are a commonly used concept to help students choose a study program in higher education. The underlying assumption is that a good choice reflects congruence of the program with a student's vocational interests. This assumption however remains controversial, given the lack of conclusive evidence due to methodological problems, mixed results, and absence of meta-analyses using multiple indicators of academic success. Therefore, we aimed to provide reliable meta-analytic evidence regarding the relationship between interest congruence and three indicators of academic success in higher education, along with the sources of variation moderating this relationship. We first performed a systematic search in three databases, which included 23 studies. We then used psychometric meta-analysis and narrative analysis to synthesise these studies. The meta-analytic results revealed that interest congruence is a positive, albeit small, predictor of academic achievement, persistence in the study program, and satisfaction with the study program. Interestingly, the manner in which interest congruence was operationalised moderated this relation: congruence measures that were operationalised with the full interest profile showed larger effects. The outcomes of the narrative review showed a great variety of methodological approaches, rendering it difficult to draw a firm conclusion. However, the general observation based on the review is that the congruence-outcome relationship is affected by individual characteristics of students, such as prior achievement, gender, first-generation status, and race. In conclusion, the results of this meta-analysis and subsequent narrative review indicate that the concept of interest congruence has the potential to be a helpful tool for adolescents for reflection on study choice. However, the relationship between interest congruence and academic success is influenced by a complex interplay of measurement variables and other individual characteristics, which should be considered in future research.

Cite this work

No public copy is stored for this record, so only the metadata is cited.

Stored only when both papers are in the corpus — 18 citations exist upstream.

Papers that cite the same references — the relational fallback while embeddings are still backfilling.