New research led by Dr Kate Kelly has shown that course type, rather than demographic background, is the strongest indicator of how well students understand employment pathways.
“Universities are under growing pressure to ensure that study leads to meaningful employment, yet many students begin their studies without fully understanding how their course connects to their career goal,” she explains.
“This means that students may move through their degree with misplaced certainty, which increases the risk of disengagement, dissatisfaction and missed job opportunities.”
To address this, Dr Kelly and her team examined students’ knowledge-confidence profiles, the relationship between how well students understood the careers linked to their course and how confident they felt they were in the right course to reach their career goal.
“We found that students’ expectations about education-employment pathways varied widely,” she says. “Importantly, knowledge-confidence profiles were not associated with demographic factors such as socio-economic status, first-generation status, or disability.”
Instead, the research pointed to the type of course students were enrolled in.
“Students in generalist and mixed degrees had more limited knowledge of career pathways, even when they felt confident, whereas students in specialised degrees showed both strong knowledge and high confidence,” she says.
Dr Kelly says the findings “challenge dominant demographic-based models” that focus on student characteristics.
“They also highlight the need for early, course-embedded employability support, especially in generalist and mixed degrees.”
The next phase of Dr Kelly’s research will focus on how students’ knowledge and confidence change over time, and whether mismatches are linked to engagement, performance and retention.
