The Relationship Between Emerging Adulthood as an Individual Mindset and Educational Outcomes: Current Issues and Directions for Future Research

This article reviews research on emerging adulthood (EA) and education to encourage scholars to further explore this topic. Specifically, this work focuses on EA as measured using the Inventory of the Dimensions of Emerging Adulthood (IDEA). Based on this review, it is concluded that the existing research provides mixed information regarding the link between education and EA mindset traits as measured by the IDEA. Furthermore, the connections between IDEA scores and both students’ academic achievements and the characteristics of the country’s educational system remain unclear. In addition, non-traditional forms of education have not been analyzed in terms of their association with IDEA scores. Finally, moderators and mediators of the relationship between EA as measured by the IDEA and education are worth examination in the future, and these could include gender, age, ethnicity, race, and social relationships.