I will get my job: moderated and mediation model of students' perceived employability in post-pandemic era

Abstract

Purpose

The current study investigates the factors influencing graduates’ perceived employability by utilizing the stimulus-organism-response theory, in the post pandemic era.

Design/methodology/approach

A quantitative approach was employed to examine the hypotheses of the research framework through partial least squares structural equation modelling (PLS-SEM) on the SmartPLS software.

Findings

The result indicates that course structure has a positive effect on students’ grit and community of inquiry (CoI). Also, students’ grit and CoI have a positive relationship with students’ performance, while students’ performance has a positive relationship with perceived employability. Moreover, students’ grit, CoI and students’ performance sequentially mediated course structure and perceived employability, whereas readiness and self-directed learning strengthen the relationship between students’ performance and perceived employability.

Originality/value

The findings will benefit university management, government and potential employers on how confident the student is in the chances of a future career after graduating from a higher institution.

Citation

Ngah, A.H., Kamarulzaman, N.I., Puteh, S., Abdullah, N.A.C., Ariffin, N.A. and Fei, L. (2024), "I will get my job: moderated and mediation model of students' perceived employability in post-pandemic era", Higher Education, Skills and Work-Based Learning, Vol. ahead-of-print No. ahead-of-print. https://doi.org/10.1108/HESWBL-11-2023-0326