📄 social_science

Exploring the effect of career planning on learning engagement: evidence from vocational and applied undergraduates in China

Based on a study of 2,100 Chinese vocational and applied undergraduates, this paper demonstrates that career planning significantly enhances learning engagement through the partial mediation of professional identity and academic self-efficacy, with career planning execution being the most influential factor and the effect remaining consistent across different undergraduate types.

Original authors: Yanxing Xue, Shuqing Xiao

Published 2026-07-09

📖 4 min read☕ Coffee break read

CC BY 4.0

Original authors: Yanxing Xue, Shuqing Xiao

Original paper licensed under CC BY 4.0 (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/). ✨ This is an AI-generated explanation of the paper below. It is not written or endorsed by the authors. For technical accuracy, refer to the original paper. Read full disclaimer

Imagine a university student's education as a long road trip. Learning engagement is how much the student is actually driving, paying attention to the map, and enjoying the scenery. Career planning is the GPS system they set up before the trip starts.

This study, conducted with over 2,000 students in China, asks a simple question: Does having a good GPS (career planning) make you a better driver (more engaged learner)?

Here is the breakdown of what the researchers found, using everyday analogies:

1. The Main Finding: The GPS Works

The study found a strong, positive link between having a career plan and being an engaged student.

The Analogy: When students know where they are going (their future career), they don't just sit in the car staring out the window. They actively steer, check the speed, and look at the road signs.
The Result: Students with better career plans were significantly more engaged in their studies. This wasn't just about showing up to class; it meant they were thinking deeper, working harder, and actually doing the practical work. Interestingly, the biggest boost was in cognitive engagement—meaning the plan helped them think more deeply about what they were learning.

2. The Three Parts of the "GPS"

The researchers broke "career planning" down into three parts to see which one mattered most:

Exploration: Looking at different maps and destinations.
Goal Clarity: Knowing exactly which city you want to visit.
Execution: Actually turning the key, shifting gears, and driving.

The Surprise: While looking at maps and knowing the destination are helpful, Execution was the most powerful driver.

The Analogy: It doesn't matter how many travel brochures you have or how clearly you can say "I want to go to Paris." If you don't actually get in the car and drive, you aren't going anywhere. The study found that students who took concrete action to align their daily study habits with their career goals were the ones who showed the highest levels of engagement.

3. The Two "Passengers" (Mediators)

The study also looked at how the GPS helps the driver. It turns out the plan works by changing two things inside the student: their Professional Identity and their Academic Self-Efficacy.

Professional Identity (The "Pride" Passenger): This is how much the student feels, "I belong to this major; it's who I am."
- How it works: A good career plan helps students see the value in their major, making them feel prouder and more connected to their studies.
Academic Self-Efficacy (The "Confidence" Passenger): This is the student's belief that, "I am capable of doing this work."
- How it works: A good plan makes the mountain of homework feel like a manageable hike. Students feel more confident they can solve the problems.

The Winner: Both passengers helped, but the Confidence Passenger (Self-Efficacy) was the stronger force. The study suggests that knowing how to get to your goal makes you feel capable, and that feeling of "I can do this" is what really drives you to keep studying hard.

4. Does the Type of Car Matter? (Vocational vs. Applied)

The researchers compared two types of students:

Vocational Undergraduates: Focused heavily on specific job skills and hands-on training.
Applied Undergraduates: Focused on combining theory with practical application.

The Result: It didn't matter which "car" they were in. The GPS (career planning) worked just as well for both groups. Whether a student was training for a specific trade or a broader professional role, having a plan boosted their engagement equally.

Summary

Think of career planning not just as a resume you write before you graduate, but as a daily fuel source for your current studies.

Knowing the destination makes you think deeper.
Actually driving (taking action) is the most important part.
Feeling confident in your ability to drive is the engine that keeps you going.

The study concludes that universities shouldn't just teach career planning as a "future" task. Instead, they should integrate it into daily learning to help students feel more confident and connected to their education right now.

Technical Summary: Exploring the Effect of Career Planning on Learning Engagement

Problem Statement
This study addresses a gap in higher education research regarding the intrinsic connection between students' career awareness and their current learning investment. While existing literature extensively covers career adaptability, decision-making self-efficacy, and employability, there is limited empirical evidence on how specific career planning processes directly influence learning engagement among vocational and applied undergraduate students in China. Furthermore, the mechanisms through which this influence occurs—specifically the mediating roles of professional identity and academic self-efficacy—and whether these effects differ between vocational and applied undergraduate types remain under-explored. The study seeks to determine if career planning is merely a future-oriented preparation tool or a significant factor shaping present-day learning behaviors.

Methodology

Data Source: The study utilized a cross-sectional survey of 2,100 valid questionnaires collected from an applied university in Shandong Province, China. The sample comprised 1,322 vocational undergraduate students and 778 applied undergraduate students.
Instrumentation: A custom questionnaire was developed by adapting and integrating established scales, including Super's Career Development Inventory (CDI), Crites's Career Maturity Inventory (CMI), Biggs's Study Process Questionnaire (SPQ), and Pintrich's Motivated Strategies for Learning Questionnaire (MSLQ).
- Independent Variable: Career Planning (measured by three dimensions: exploration, goal clarity, and execution).
- Dependent Variable: Learning Engagement (measured by three dimensions: cognitive, behavioral, and practical).
- Mediating Variables: Professional Identity and Academic Self-Efficacy.
- Control Variables: Gender, grade, major, undergraduate type, origin, parental education, academic ranking, leadership roles, course experience, and internship/part-time work.
Statistical Analysis:
- Reliability/Validity: Cronbach's alpha coefficients for all scales exceeded 0.90. KMO values were above 0.90, and Bartlett's tests were significant ( $p < 0.001$ ). Exploratory factor analysis and parallel analysis supported the theoretical structures, though learning engagement items showed strong convergence on a single dominant factor.
- Regression Models: Multiple linear regression was employed to test the direct effects of career planning on learning engagement and its dimensions.
- Mediation Analysis: A stepwise regression approach and a bootstrap procedure (5,000 resamples) were used to test the mediating effects of professional identity and academic self-efficacy.
- Heterogeneity Analysis: An interaction term between career planning and undergraduate type was included to test for moderation effects.

Key Results

Direct Effect: Career planning significantly and positively predicts overall learning engagement ( $\beta = 0.8965, p < 0.01$ ). This positive effect extends to all three dimensions of engagement: cognitive ( $\beta = 0.9259$ ), behavioral ( $\beta = 0.8680$ ), and practical ( $\beta = 0.8956$ ). The strongest effect was observed on cognitive engagement.
Dimensional Analysis: Among the dimensions of career planning, career planning execution (the ability to translate goals into concrete actions) exerted the most substantial influence on learning engagement ( $\beta = 0.5832$ ), significantly outweighing the effects of career exploration ( $\beta = 0.1882$ ) and goal clarity ( $\beta = 0.1276$ ).
Mediation Mechanisms: Both professional identity and academic self-efficacy play partial mediating roles in the relationship between career planning and learning engagement.
- Career planning significantly enhances professional identity ( $\beta = 0.8553$ ) and academic self-efficacy ( $\beta = 0.8572$ ).
- When mediators were included, the direct coefficient of career planning on learning engagement decreased from 0.8965 to 0.4543 but remained significant.
- Academic self-efficacy demonstrated a relatively stronger mediating effect (indirect effect = 0.2800) compared to professional identity (indirect effect = 0.1622).
Heterogeneity: The interaction between career planning and undergraduate type was not statistically significant ( $p = 0.374$ ). This indicates that the positive effect of career planning on learning engagement is consistent across both vocational and applied undergraduate students, regardless of their specific training orientation.

Key Contributions

Theoretical Extension: The study moves beyond general career adaptability to specifically examine career planning execution as a critical driver of learning engagement, highlighting that the translation of goals into action is more impactful than mere goal setting or information gathering.
Mechanism Clarification: It empirically validates a dual-pathway model where career planning fosters learning engagement by strengthening students' identification with their major and, more significantly, by boosting their confidence in their ability to master academic tasks (self-efficacy).
Contextual Specificity: By focusing on the Chinese context and comparing vocational versus applied undergraduate programs, the study provides evidence that career planning is a universal lever for engagement in practice-oriented higher education, rather than a factor limited to specific institutional types.

Significance and Claims
The paper claims that career planning is not solely a preparatory process for post-graduation employment but is a fundamental factor shaping students' current learning engagement. The findings suggest that universities should integrate career planning education throughout the talent cultivation process. Specifically, the authors argue that educational interventions should focus not just on helping students clarify future goals, but on enhancing their academic self-efficacy and professional identity through curriculum guidance and practical support. The study concludes that strengthening these internal mechanisms will lead to sustained improvements in learning engagement across diverse undergraduate populations.

Limitations Noted by Authors
The authors explicitly acknowledge the limitations of their cross-sectional design, which prevents definitive causal inference regarding the temporal order of variables. They also note the reliance on self-reported data, which may be subject to common method variance, and the restriction of the sample to a single university in Shandong Province, cautioning against over-generalization to all higher education contexts without further multi-institutional validation.

1. The Main Finding: The GPS Works

2. The Three Parts of the "GPS"

3. The Two "Passengers" (Mediators)

4. Does the Type of Car Matter? (Vocational vs. Applied)

Summary

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