Reconstructing Adulthood: Revising the Markers of Adulthood Scale for Increased Ecological Validity

Young adults endorse more individualistic and internal adulthood milestones compared to prior generations. Arnett (1994) introduced the Markers of Adulthood (MoA) scale to capture this shift in the transition to adulthood using 38 markers associated with becoming an adult, including marriage, having children, and living independently. These items were based on psychological, anthropological, and sociological determinations concerning adulthood, and were arranged into subscales based on their theoretical association rather than statistical analysis. Since the scale was introduced, researchers have addressed crucial questions about the validity of the MoA scale’s milestones. A recurring theme was identifying items that could be sorted into reliable subscales. We examined a collection of original items and included new ones, such as “have a professional social media account” and “recognize personal capabilities and shortcomings” to configure a revised MoA model. A total of 861 participants in seven national locations responded to a demographic survey, the Inventory of the Dimensions of Emerging Adulthood (IDEA; Reifman, et al., 2007), and a collection of MoA items. We conducted a principal component analysis to identify 22 items and four factors (role transitions, independence, legality markers, and relative maturity) which represented 55% of the total variance in the dataset. All factors except legality markers were identified by prior researchers. While four factors demonstrated the best fit for subscale configurations, the revised MoA was considered most reliable when used in its entirety. Our examination ends with a discussion of future directions for configuring items which may produce reliable subscales.

How Does a Family Caregiver’s Sense of Role Loss Impact the Caregiving Experience?

Family caregivers reportedly have a powerful sense of role loss, which is felt when one senses a change in role or responsibility, relationship distancing, or a changed asymmetry. Little is known about the impact it has on the caregiving experience, so the purpose of this study was to clarify this in three distinct settings: when an individual’s primary role changed to the caregiver role after the start of caregiving; when their primary role was other than the caregiver role after this start; and when their primary role was the caregiver role before caregiving started. Sixty-six individuals responded to an online survey, and a framework method was employed to organize the collected data and uncover themes for analysis. Our findings shed light on the sense of caregiver role loss and pointed to the possibility of generating it when family caregivers rotate through held roles and the use of it as a tool to maintain or regain a sense of personal choice in life and self-priority. Our study is probably the first to analyze this phenomenon in different caregiving settings based on an individual’s primary role and role transitions and brings to light a new perspective of the phenomenon by understanding how it arises, its nuances, and its impact on the caregiver’s experience.

Leveraging critical friendship to navigate doctoral student role transitions

Purpose The purpose of this study is to investigate the influence of critical friendship on a first- and last-year doctoral student’s novice and expert mindsets during role transitions. Doctoral students are challenged to navigate role transitions during their academic programs. Experiences in research expectations, academy acculturation and work-life balance, may impact doctoral students’ novice-expert mindsets and contribute to the costly problem of attrition. Universities offer generic doctoral support, but few support sources address the long-term self-directed nature of self-study. Design/methodology/approach The authors participated in a collaborative self-study over a 30-month period. The authors collected 35 personal shared journal entries and 12 recorded and transcribed discussions. The authors conducted a constant comparative analysis of the data, and individually and collaboratively coded the data for initial and focused codes to construct themes. Findings The critical friendship provided a safe space to explore the doctoral experiences and novice-expert mindsets, which the authors were not fully able to do with programmatic support alone. The authors identified nine specific strategies that positively impacted the novice-expert mindsets during the following role transitions: professional to student, student to graduate and graduate to professional. Originality/value While researchers have identified strategies and models for doctoral student support targeting specific milestones, this study identified strategies to support doctoral students’ novice-expert mindsets during role transitions. These strategies may benefit other graduate students, as well as faculty and program directors, as they work to support student completion.