Time: Tuesday, 27/Aug/2024: 15:15 - 16:45 Session Chair: Vesa Korhonen |
Location: Room 202 in ΘΕE 01 (Faculty of Pure & Applied Sciences [FST01]) [Floor 2] Cap: 40 |
Paper
Career Planning for an Uncertain Future: Does School Support and Career Planning Competence Affect University Students' Internship Perspectives?
Tianjin University, China, People's Republic of
Presenting Author:Introduction and Topic:
In the current global climate of heightened job competition, students are grappling with palpable tension between future aspirations and prevailing uncertainties, and this prompts an increasingly initiation into career planning (Jackson & Tomlinson, 2020). Europe, with its well-established career guidance systems, has historically excelled in this domain. The Erasmus+ programme introduced the 'Toward the European Career Development Programme: initiatives, cases, and practices in universities', underscoring the imperative for university students to focus on 'Integration with the world of work'. Asian countries, including China, have begun to advance university career guidance education through policy initiatives in face of a substantial youth labor force and intense employment competition. Internships, a crucial part of career planning, affords students the opportunity to adapt, learn, and accrue experience in a real work environment (Ganibo & Olayta, 2020), thus beneficial in fine-tuning employment decisions and enhancing chances of acceptance.
The formation of students' perceptions to their future development is influenced by both individual (Brown, Cober, Kane, Levy, & Shalhoop, 2006) and environmental factors (McNall & Michel, 2011; Renn, Steinbauer, Taylor, & Detwiler, 2014). Existing studies have proved the positive impact of career guidance education on career planning and job search intentions, (Renn et al., 2014) but finer-grained understanding is still required. The specific effects of students' career planning skills and the school support on their perceptions of internships have not been comprehensively explored. Furthermore, while the significant role of internship providers and higher education institutions in shaping the perceptions during the internships, most research focused on those already in internships (Daugherty, Baldwin, & Rowley, 1998; Zehr & Korte, 2020) and neglected the perceptions before internships and how they come about.
Research Question
This study aims to delineate the influence of career planning competence and school support on undergraduates' internship perceptions, offering various countries insights for a more thorough understanding of how personal ability and school factors affect students' career planning and perceptions in uncertain environment.
1) Does career planning competence significantly influence the internship perceptions of students with and without internship experience?
2) Does school support significantly impact the internship perceptions of students with and without internship experience?
3) What is the relationship between school support and career planning competence?
Conceptual Framework:
Career planning competency refers to students' perceptiveness of their environment and their ability to formulate and adjust plans on their career (Taylor & Betz, 1983). School support encompasses the internship-related courses, platforms, resources, networks, and counselling provided by educational institutions. The perceptions of internships are students' recognition of the importance of internships, their attitudes towards them, and their sense of self-efficacy when making internship-related decisions.
Methodology, Methods, Research Instruments or Sources Used
This study utilizes multiple group structural equation modeling to examine the impact of school support and career planning on students’ perceptions of internships, focusing on the differences between students with and without prior internship experiences. This study distributed questionnaires to undergraduates in China through Wen Juan Xing (Chinese online questionnaire platform), yielding 438 responses between August 2023 and September 2023. The scales used in the questionnaire were adapted from previous research to measure students' career planning competencies (Greenhaus, 1987), the level of school support received (Xuejun & qian, 2010), and their perceptions of internships(Taylor & Betz, 1983). In the sample, there were 152 males and 286 females; 211 had prior internship experiences and 227 did not.
Conclusions, Expected Outcomes or Findings
The findings indicate that career planning competence significantly influences students’ perceptions of internships in both groups, with a notably stronger effect observed in students lacking internship experiences. While school support shows no significant influence on the perceptions of internships among students without experiences, it is a predictive factor for those who have completed internships. Additionally, a positive and significant relationship between school support and career planning competence is identified in both groups, with a more pronounced correlation evident among students who have had internship experiences.
The outcomes of this research are not merely of academic relevance but also furnish a theoretical framework and reference point for the global enhancement of career guidance in higher education, particularly under the prevailing climate of uncertainty, and for fostering sustainable internship perceptions and employment preparation among undergraduate students.
References
Brown, D. J., Cober, R. T., Kane, K., Levy, P. E., & Shalhoop, J. (2006). Proactive personality and the successful job search: A field investigation with college graduates. JOURNAL OF APPLIED PSYCHOLOGY, 91(3), 717-726. doi:10.1037/0021-9010.91.3.717
Daugherty, S. R., Baldwin, D. C., & Rowley, B. D. (1998). Learning, satisfaction, and mistreatment during medical internship - A national survey of working conditions. JAMA-JOURNAL OF THE AMERICAN MEDICAL ASSOCIATION, 279(15), 1194-1199. doi:10.1001/jama.279.15.1194
Ganibo, J. A. C., & Olayta, J. N. (2020). ASSESSMENT OF AGRO-STUDIES INTERNSHIP PROGRAM AT THE LAGUNA STATE POLYTECHNIC UNIVERSITY. International Journal of Advanced Research.
Jackson, D. A., & Tomlinson, M. (2020). Investigating the relationship between career planning, proactivity and employability perceptions among higher education students in uncertain labour market conditions. Higher Education, 1-21.
McNall, L. A., & Michel, J. S. (2011). A Dispositional Approach to Work-School Conflict and Enrichment. JOURNAL OF BUSINESS AND PSYCHOLOGY, 26(3), 397-411. doi:10.1007/s10869-010-9187-0
Renn, R. W., Steinbauer, R., Taylor, R., & Detwiler, D. (2014). School-to-work transition: Mentor career support and student career planning, job search intentions, and self-defeating job search behavior. JOURNAL OF VOCATIONAL BEHAVIOR, 85(3), 422-432. doi:10.1016/j.jvb.2014.09.004
Taylor, K. M., & Betz, N. E. (1983). Applications of self-efficacy theory to the understanding and treatment of career indecision. JOURNAL OF VOCATIONAL BEHAVIOR, 22, 63-81.
Xuejun, C., & qian, Z. (2010). The influence of school support and psychological capital on career decision-making difficulties of college students. Paper presented at the The 5th (2010) China Annual Management Conference -- Organizational Behavior and Human Resource Management, Dalian, Liaoning, China.
Zehr, S. M., & Korte, R. (2020). Student internship experiences: learning about the workplace. EDUCATION AND TRAINING, 62(3), 311-324. doi:10.1108/ET-11-2018-0236
Erasmus+.(2015).Toward the European Career Development Programme: initiatives, cases, and practices in universities. https://www.icard-project.eu/docs/ICARD_O1_report_final.pdf (Accessed: 29 January 2024).
Paper
Students’ Work Experience in Relation to Their Career Engagement and Metacognitive Awareness
1University of Helsinki, Finland; 2University of Eastern Finland, Finland
Presenting Author:Higher education students in Finland and all over the world working a paid job alongside their studies. The reason for working is mostly financial but also gaining work experience (e.g. Holmes, 2008). Students understand the importance of gaining work experience and creating networks already during studies (Tuononen & Hyytinen, 2022), and thus they work alongside studies. Previous research has shown that any type of work experience can increase students’ employability and reduce the risk of unemployment (Passaretta & Triventi, 2015). In addition to work experience, transition to working life requires active career engagement already during university studies (Haase et al., 2012; Tuononen & Hyytinen, 2022). Career engagement includes, for example, career planning, identifying one’s own interests and recognising future job possibilities (Hirschi et al., 2014).
Working a paid job alongside studies means that students need to combine studying and working. This requires metacognitive awareness that refers to an ability to be aware of and specify one’s thinking about learning and an ability to plan and set learning goals, and to monitor their thoughts and actions to attain the goals (Schraw & Dennison, 1994; Kallio et al., 2018). Metacognitive awareness is commonly divided into two interrelated dimensions, knowledge about cognition and regulation of cognition (Kallio et al., 2018; Schraw & Dennison, 1994; Tuononen et al., 2022). Knowledge about cognition enables students to be more aware of what they know, and what they are able to do, and how and when to use the knowledge and skills in different learning situations (Kallio et al., 2018). Regulation of cognition is about planning, monitoring and evaluating one's thoughts, feelings and actions to attain one’s goals (Usher & Schunk, 2018). Therefore, metacognitive awareness is important for students to be able to monitor their studies and work alongside studies, as well as to see the relevance of work experience and to apply their learning to practice in work context.
Perceived relevance of work is subjective and can vary among students depending on their work and academic studies and career goals (Drewery et al., 2016; Nevison et al., 2017). For example, students have perceived greater relevance of work if the work offers appropriate challenges and if they work in a field in which they are aiming to work in the future (Drewery & Pretti, 2021). In addition, many studies of perceived relevance of work have been conducted in Australia, Canada, and the USA (e.g. Drewery, & Pretti, 2021; Stringer & Kerpelman, 2010). Furthermore, these studies explored the relevance of work in internships or work-integrated learning (WIL) contexts. Therefore, there is a need for research exploring perceived relevance of paid jobs in Scandinavia. In addition, it is important to explore humanities students' perceptions of the relevance of work experience and how it is related to their career engagement and metacognitive awareness.
The present study aims to explore how humanities Master’s students’ work experience of paid jobs is related to career engagement and metacognitive awareness. Research questions are: 1) How is students’ employment status related to their career engagement and metacognitive awareness?, 2) How are the amount and nature of work related to career engagement and metacognitive awareness?, 3) How is the experienced relevance of work related to the nature of work, career engagement and metacognitive awareness? With this information, higher education institutions can support students to take better advantage of their work experience and develop their career engagement and metacognitive awareness which in turn help them later in their transition to working life.
Methodology, Methods, Research Instruments or Sources Used
A total of 302 Master’s students, who were at the same level of their studies, participated in the study by filling the questionnaire. Response rate varied from 9% to 36% between the degree programmes (mean was 23%). The questionnaire included questions of work experience, career engagement and metacognitive awareness. Students’ employment status was measured by asking whether she/he has worked during studies and how many hours per week they have worked in the past year. Nature of work was measured by the item “My work is related to my field of study” on a 5-point Likert scale. It was recoded as a categorical variable so that totally agree and agree were combined as indicating having work experience in one’s own study field and totally disagree and disagree indicating no study related work experience. In addition, the questionnaire included two questions relating to the relevance of work: 1) ”The requirement level of my current job corresponds to my university education” and 2) “I can utilise things I have learnt at the university in my current job”. Items are measured on a 5-point Likert format scale (1 =completely disagree, 5 =completely agree). The items were modified based on the previous study (Tuononen, Parpala & Lindblom-Ylänne, 2019).
Students’ metacognitive awareness was measured using a shortened version of the Metacognitive Awareness Inventory (MAI, Schraw & Dennison, 1994; Harrison & Vallin, 2018; Kallio et al., 2018; Kallio et al., 2017; Tuononen et al., 2022). The instrument measures two major components of metacognitive awareness: 1) knowledge about cognition and 2) regulation of cognition. A 5-point Likert scale (1 = totally disagree, and 5 = totally agree) was used to measure metacognitive awareness. Career Engagement was measured by seven items including career planning, career self-exploration, environmental career exploration, networking, skill development and positioning behaviour which is a shortened version of Career Engagement Scale (Hirschi, Freund & Herrmann, 2014). Items are measured on a 5-point Likert scale.
First, exploratory and confirmatory factor analyses were conducted to the items measuring metacognitive awareness and career engagement. The relationships between the constructs were analysed using Pearson correlations, independent samples t-test and One-Way ANOVA. The effect sizes were calculated using Cohen’s d. Analyses were conducted with SPSS and Amos 28.
Conclusions, Expected Outcomes or Findings
The results showed that students working a paid job had higher scores on networking than non-working students. There was no difference in metacognitive awareness between working and non-working students. When, the amount of working hours was taken into account, the results showed that there were significant differences in career engagement as well as metacognitive awareness. Students who worked more than 35h per week had higher scores on networking compared to the students who worked less than 20 hours. Similarly, students with 35 hours work had significantly higher scores on knowledge of cognition and regulation of cognition than students working less than 35 h per week. The results showed that the nature of work was related to both dimensions of career engagement, but it was not related to metacognitive awareness.
The results also revealed that students who had work experience related to their study field experienced that their level of work corresponds better to their education and that they can utilise their studies at work more than students who had no work experience related to field of study. The results showed that perceived relevance of work was related to career planning and networking as well as knowledge about cognition. This indicates that students who evaluated that their work has relevance were more aware of their learning, they perceive that they can utilise things that they have learned at university, and they have also had more career planning and networking activities during the last six months.
The present study indicates that students' working can enhance students’ career engagement and their metacognitive awareness. Study also revealed that the amount and nature of work matter in terms of whether work experience was related to career engagement, metacognitive awareness, and perceived work relevance.
References
Drewery, D., & Pretti, T. J. (2021). The building blocks of relevant work experiences. International Journal of Work-Integrated Learning, 22(2), 241–251.
Drewery, D., Pretti, T. J., & Barclay, S. (2016). Examining the Effects of Perceived Relevance and Work-Related Subjective Well-Being on Individual Performance for Co-Op Students. Asia-Pacific Journal of Cooperative Education, 17(2), 119–134.
Haase, C. M., Heckhausen, J., & Silbereisen, R. K. (2012). The interplay of occupational motivation and well-being during the transition from university to work. Developmental Psychology, 48(6), 1739–1751. https://doi.org/10.1037/a0026641
Harrison, G. M., & Vallin, L. M. (2018). Evaluating the metacognitive awareness inventory using empirical factor-structure evidence. Metacognition and Learning, 13, 15–38. Doi: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11409-017-9176-z
Hirschi, A., Freund, P. A., & Herrmann, A. (2014). The career engagement scale: Development and validation of a measure of proactive career behaviors. Journal of Career Assessment, 22(4), 575–594.
Holmes, V. (2008). Working to live: why university students balance full‐time study and employment. Education+ Training, 50 (4), 305–314.
Kallio, H., Virta, K., & Kallio, M. (2018). Modelling the Components of Metacognitive Awareness. International Journal of Educational Psychology, 7(2), 9–122. doi: https://doi.org/10.17583/ijep.2018.2789
Nevison, C., Drewery, D., Pretti, J., & Cormier, L. (2017) Using learning environments to create meaningful work for co-op students, Higher Education Research & Development, 36(4), 807–822, DOI: 10.1080/07294360.2016.1229268
Passaretta, G., & Triventi, M. (2015). Work experience during higher education and post-graduation occupational outcomes: A comparative study on four European countries. International Journal of Comparative Sociology, 56(3-4), 232–253.
Schraw, G., & Dennison, R. S. (1994). Assessing metacognitive awareness. Contemporary Educational Psychology, 19, 460–475. doi:https://doi.org/10.1006/ceps.1994.1033
Stringer, K.J., & Kerpelman, J.L. (2010) Career Identity Development in College Students: Decision Making, Parental Support, and Work Experience, Identity, 10(3), 181–200, DOI: 10.1080/15283488.2010.496102
Tuononen, T., & Hyytinen H. (2022). Towards a Successful Transition to Work - Which Employability Factors Contribute to Early Career Success? Journal of Education and Work, 35(6-7), 599–613. https://doi.org/10.1080/13639080.2022.2126969
Tuononen, T., Hyytinen, H., Räisänen, M., Hailikari, T., & Parpala, A. (2022). Metacognitive awareness in relation to university students’ learning profiles. Metacognition and Learning. https://doi.org/10.1007/s11409-022-09314-x
Tuononen, T., Parpala, A., & Lindblom-Ylänne, S. (2019). Graduates’ evaluations of usefulness of university education, and early career success – A longitudinal study of the transition to working life. Assessment and Evaluation in Higher Education, 44(4), 581-595.https://doi.org/10.1080/02602938.2018.1524000