Can curriculum help career success? An empirical research on the perceived employability of students

ABSTRACT

Universities exert generous efforts to take advantage of curriculum to help students succeed in the competitive employment market. However, it remains unclear whether perceived employability (PE), as the crucial indicator of the career success of students, can be improved by the curriculum. In accordance with Job Demands–Resources theory, this study examined the influencing mechanism of curriculum, including course workload and course challenge, on the PE of students. Results from a sample of 880 Chinese graduate students confirm that course workload and course challenge positively affect PE via motivational belief; high-level supervisor–student relationships increase the effect of course challenge, and high-level student–student relationships improve the effect of course workload. The results present valuable guidance to universities on how to improve the PE of students through curriculum to help them succeed in their careers.

KEYWORDS:

• Curriculum
• interpersonal relationships
• Job Demands–Resources theory
• motivational belief
• perceived employability

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

ORCID

Di Zhao http://orcid.org/0000-0001-5536-5769

Jianlin Wu http://orcid.org/0000-0002-2462-5078

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by National Natural Science Foundation of China [Grant Number 71371177] and Natural Science Foundation of Anhui Province [Grant Number 1708085MG174; 1808085MG223].