The Pursuit of Academic and Career Goals: A Dual-Domain Latent Change Score Model of Coping, Progress, and Burnout

In this study (N = 550), we relied on a dual-domain framework in which the academic and career strivings of university students were separately measured at two points in time to consider the domain specificity and changing nature of the coping process. We first examined the contemporaneous interplay between perceived control, coping, goal progress, and burnout. We then examined if these effects would translate at the longitudinal level. Using bivariate latent change scores, we created a model in which earlier levels of perceived control and coping in a particular domain would respectively explain change in coping and outcomes in that same domain. To rule out alternative cross-domain and bidirectional hypotheses, we then built upon this model to test (a) a model in which we added spillover paths to examine whether the within-domain effects could also take place across the academic and career domains and (b) a model in which we added paths in the reversed direction to elucidate the direction of the within-domain effects under study. Results of longitudinal analyses indicated that earlier use of task- and disengagement-oriented coping predicted change in goal progress, but not in burnout, in both the academic and career domains. In the career domain, earlier levels of goal progress also predicted change in task-oriented coping, thus revealing a bidirectional effect. No cross-domain effects were supported. Overall, results indicated that the associations between coping, goal progress, and burnout differed both within and across time and contexts.