Conference Agenda

Introduction

Adolescence represents a critical developmental phase characterized by heightened vulnerability to depressive symptoms. Depressive symptoms, such as persistent sadness, emptiness, or irritability, can compromise adolescents' psychological, social, and academic functioning and are associated with a wide range of adverse outcomes, including risky behaviors, emotional difficulties, substance use, and self-injurious behavior and suicidal ideation. In parallel, adolescents face increasing pressure to make consequential academic and career-related decisions. According to Social Cognitive Career Theory (SCCT) choice model, career development is shaped by the interplay between personal variables and contextual influences. A central cognitive-personal mechanism is career decision-making self-efficacy, the belief in one's capability to manage career choices, which develops through learning experiences and environmental conditions. Among key contextual influences, career-related parental behaviors are particularly salient in adolescence and have been conceptualized as support, interference, and lack of engagement. While supportive behaviors may strengthen adaptive resources, interfering or disengaged parenting may undermine adolescents’ autonomy, increase school-related distress, and heighten vulnerability to depressive symptoms. Building on this framework, the present study focuses on how perceived career-related parental behaviors relate to adolescents' career decision self-efficacy and depressive symptoms, and whether career adaptability and school anxiety operate as intervening mechanisms. This study examined associations between perceived career-related parental behaviors (support, interference, lack of engagement) with career decision self-efficacy and depressive symptoms, testing a multiple mediation model in which career adaptability and school anxiety were specified as mediators. We hypothesized that career-related parental behaviors would be associated with career decision self-efficacy and depressive symptoms, and that career adaptability and school anxiety relate to this.

Methods

Participants were 310 Italian high school students (53.2% female; Mage=17.46, SD=1.16) recruited through convenience sampling in a cross-sectional design. Data were collected via an anonymous online survey, with informed consent and in accordance with the Declaration of Helsinki and Italian privacy regulations. Students completed validated self-report measures: the Parental Career-related Behavior Questionnaire (PCB), the Career Adapt-Abilities Scale (CAAS), the Test Anxiety Inventory (PAF), the Career Decision Self-Efficacy Scale-Short Form (CDSES-SF), and the Center for Epidemiologic Studies Depression Scale (CES-D).

Results

Correlational patterns indicated that parental support was positively associated with career adaptability and career decision self-efficacy and negatively associated with depressive symptoms, whereas parental interference and lack of engagement were positively associated with depressive symptoms and negatively associated with adaptability and self-efficacy. The hypothesized path model showed good fit (χ²(2) = 8.07, CFI = 0.990, SRMR = 0.034) and accounted for substantial variance in career decision self-efficacy (R² = 0.553) and depressive symptoms (R² = 0.468). In the model, parental support was linked to higher career decision self-efficacy and lower depressive symptoms, whereas parental interference and parental lack of engagement were linked to higher depressive symptoms and lower career decision self-efficacy. Career adaptability emerged as a key mechanism connecting supportive and interfering parenting to both outcomes, while school anxiety contributed primarily to depressive symptoms, consistent with evidence that school-related anxiety is an important correlate of internalizing difficulties in adolescence. Overall, findings align with SCCT’s emphasis on contextual supports and barriers shaping adaptive resources and adjustment.

Educational Significance of the research

These findings underscore the educational relevance of involving families in career guidance processes and promoting autonomy-supportive parenting. School-based interventions and counseling may benefit from strengthening adolescents’ career adaptability and addressing school anxiety to support career decision self-efficacy and reduce vulnerability to depressive symptoms during a high-stakes developmental period.

1. Introduction

Universities are increasingly expected to foster not only academic achievement but also students’ capacity for self-regulation, professional orientation, and responsible participation in society. While mentoring initiatives are widespread in higher education, they frequently operate as fragmented support mechanisms, primarily addressing academic performance or retention indicators. Such approaches risk underestimating the developmental complexity of students’ educational trajectories.

Contemporary research in student development theory, self-determination theory, and relational pedagogy suggests that learning is embedded in broader cognitive, emotional, and identity-forming processes. Students enter higher education with heterogeneous learning profiles, sociocultural backgrounds, and vocational aspirations. Consequently, mentoring cannot be reduced to advisory functions; rather, it may be conceptualised as a structured developmental partnership that facilitates meaning-making, reflective agency, and long-term engagement.

This study addresses the following research question:

How can university mentoring be theoretically grounded and empirically structured as a framework for integral student development that integrates academic, vocational, and socio-emotional dimensions?

The objective is to develop a transferable mentoring framework capable of supporting diverse student trajectories within inclusive higher education environments.

2. Methods

This research employs a qualitative case study design situated within a structured university mentoring programme. Data were collected through:

Semi-structured interviews with undergraduate students participating in long-term mentoring

Interviews with faculty mentors

Institutional document analysis of mentoring guidelines and pedagogical frameworks

Participants represented multiple academic disciplines and stages of study, enabling cross-contextual comparison. Data were analysed using reflexive thematic analysis, guided by theoretical constructs from developmental psychology and higher education research.

The analytical lens focused on three domains: self-regulated learning, identity and vocational development, and socio-emotional integration within the university context.

3. Results and Discussion

The findings indicate that mentoring contributes to student development in ways that extend beyond academic advising. Three interrelated dimensions emerged:

1. Development of Reflective Self-Regulation

Students reported enhanced capacity to set meaningful goals, monitor progress, and adapt learning strategies. Mentoring conversations functioned as structured reflective spaces that promoted metacognitive awareness and academic agency.

2. Vocational Clarification and Identity Formation

Participants described mentoring as a dialogical environment in which academic pathways were connected to broader professional and life projects. Rather than prescribing career trajectories, mentoring supported exploratory discernment and coherent decision-making.

3. Socio-Emotional Anchoring and Institutional Belonging

Mentoring relationships fostered psychological safety, particularly during transitional academic phases. Students experiencing uncertainty or academic difficulty reported increased confidence and institutional attachment.

These results support a multifactorial understanding of student success that integrates cognitive development, identity construction, and relational support. Importantly, the mentoring framework demonstrated flexibility in addressing heterogeneous developmental needs without imposing uniform outcomes. The data suggest that mentoring is most effective when grounded in sustained dialogue and reflective engagement rather than episodic intervention.

4. Educational Significance

This study contributes to interdisciplinary scholarship on higher education by reconceptualising mentoring as an integrative developmental framework rather than a remedial or performance-oriented mechanism.

The proposed model advances four key contributions:

It operationalises integral student development within institutional mentoring structures.

It accommodates diversity in student backgrounds and learning trajectories without fragmenting support services.

It strengthens the alignment between academic learning and vocational orientation.

It offers a transferable framework adaptable to varied higher education contexts.

In a rapidly evolving educational landscape marked by increasing complexity and heterogeneity, universities require mentoring models that support sustained personal and academic growth. By positioning mentoring as a structured developmental process embedded within institutional culture, this research provides a theoretically grounded and practically applicable approach to fostering inclusive and future-oriented higher education environments.

Tracing expert reasoning in SEN diagnoses: abductive pathways to educational recommendations

Expert committees produce diagnostic reports that carry high stakes for patients. These texts mediate access to special educational needs (SEN) services, shape school placements and legitimise accommodations. Although such reports usually document assessment results in detail, the inferential steps that connect evidence to recommendations are often condensed into short summaries. This opacity has practical consequences beyond the style. In decision-theoretical terms, SEN judgements integrate heterogeneous evidence—test profiles, classroom performance, developmental history, and contextual constraints—and frequently involve abductive reasoning, inferring the "best explanation" under uncertainty. This study aimed to reconstruct these reasoning pathways and test whether distinct configurations of evidence systematically align with recommendation types.

Research questions: (RQ1) What types of warrants and reasoning moves justify the recommendations? (RQ2) Where do abductive "leaps" occur—points at which the recommendation is not straightforwardly derivable from the preceding evidence narrative? (RQ3) Which configurations of coded conditions are sufficient or necessary for (a) integrated education with accommodations and (b) more segregated educational arrangements?

The dataset comprised 235 anonymised SEN diagnostic reports from a regional expert committee in the 2019/20 school year. We extracted two narrative units from each report: (1) interpretive synthesis of assessment findings and (2) recommendation package (placement, accommodations, and development directions). We conducted a combined deductive–inductive qualitative content analysis to develop a codebook with four blocks: difficulty domains (e.g. reading, writing, numeracy, attention/executive functioning, memory, language), contextual qualifiers (e.g. multilingualism, absenteeism, socio-emotional stressors, school resources), trajectory indicators (e.g. documented response to intervention, stability of difficulties across years), and recommendation elements (e.g. integrated education, reduced workload, extra time, assistive tools, targeted remediation, special class/school).

Two coders independently coded a stratified subset and resolved disagreements through analytic memos, refining the codebook accordingly. Subsequently, we converted selected codes into fuzzy-set membership scores (gradual rather than binary categories) and applied fuzzy-set Qualitative Comparative Analysis (fsQCA) to identify necessary and sufficient configurations for two outcomes: "integrated education with accommodations" and "segregated arrangement recommended." Throughout, we used qualitative interpretations to explain the fsQCA solutions and identify textual markers of abductive reasoning.

A stable macro-structure emerged across reports—evidential inventory → interpretive synthesis → recommendation package—yet the synthesis section varied markedly in how it justified the transitions. Four warrant types were identified. Measurement-led warrants anchor decisions in standardised profiles and discrepancy patterns. Trajectory-led warrants prioritised longitudinal school history and documented responses to prior support. Contextualised warrants reframed the test findings through environmental or instructional constraints. Precautionary warrants justified stronger recommendations in the presence of uncertainty, often using risk language ("to prevent further failure").

Abductive "leaps" clustered at two points: when evidence was mixed (strong test indicators but weak classroom corroboration, or vice versa) and when contextual factors were invoked late, functioning as post-hoc explanations.

The fsQCA results supported equifinality, as multiple pathways reliably led to the same recommendation type. Integrated education with accommodations was consistently associated with configurations combining domain-specific difficulties with positive trajectory indicators (benefiting from prior support and stable school participation) and low contextual risk. In contrast, segregated arrangements aligned with multi-domain difficulty configurations combined with negative trajectory indicators (limited response to intervention and persistent functional impact) and, frequently, precautionary warrants. Importantly, no single test-domain code functioned as a universal "trigger." Rather, the interaction between domains, trajectories, and contextual qualifiers explained the variation in decisions. These findings suggest that the main source of perceived subjectivity is not the presence of judgement per se but the under-specification of warrants that link evidence to action.

By making diagnostic reasoning explicit, this study contributes to transparency and professional learning in SEN systems. The warrant-based codebook can be adapted as a reflective checklist for report writing (What evidence is used? What warrants connects it to the decision? Are contextual assumptions stated?) and as a training scaffold in special educator and school psychologist education. For schools and families, clearer reasoning maps can support a shared understanding of accommodations and reduce conflict around placement decisions. At the system level, the combination of qualitative mapping with fsQCA offers a practical quality assurance approach that respects case complexity while still enabling pattern detection across large corpora.