Abstract
Grounded on social cognitive career theory as a framework, the present research investigates whether high quality international mobility experiences of students enhance their general self-efficacy perceptions and improve job-search self-efficacy behavior (JSSE-B) and job-search self-efficacy outcome (JSSE-O) following graduation. Data was collected at two different time points from students who enrolled to an international mobility program. The first survey was conducted shortly after students returned to home country, and the second survey after 23 months on average following the first survey. The results revealed that the quality of international experiences had a positive and indirect effect on JSSE-B and JSSE-O and this relationship was mediated by general self-efficacy of participants. The findings suggested that both general self-efficacy and by extension job search self-efficacy could be enhanced through properly designed international student mobility programs, benefits of which are not constrained to a limited time span, but prevail after graduation, as well.
Similar content being viewed by others
Data Availability
The datasets generated during and/or analyzed during the current study are available from the corresponding author on reasonable request.
References
Anderson, J. C., & Gerbing, D. W. (1988). Structural equation modeling in practice: A review and recommended two-step approach. Psychological Bulletin, 103(3), 411–423.
Bandura, A. (1997). Self-efficacy: The exercise of control. New York: Freeman.
Bandura, A. (2006). Toward a psychology of human agency. Perspectives on Psychological Science, 1(2), 164–180. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1745-6916.2006.00011.x.
Becker, T. E. (2005). Potential problems in the statistical control of variables in organizational research: A qualitative analysis with recommendations. Organizational Research Methods, 8(3), 274–289. https://doi.org/10.1177/1094428105278021.
Betz, N. E. (2000). Self-efficacy theory as a basis for career assessment. Journal of Career Assessment, 8(3), 205–222. https://doi.org/10.1177/106907270000800301.
Betz, N. E., & Schifano, R. S. (2000). Evaluation of an intervention to increase realistic self-efficacy and interests in college women. Journal of Vocational Behavior, 56(1), 35–52. https://doi.org/10.1006/jvbe.1999.1690.
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. https://doi.org/10.1037/0021-9010.91.3.717.
Carlson, J. S., Burn, B. B., Useem, J., & Yachimowicz, D. (1990). Study abroad: The experience of American undergraduates. New York: Greenwood Publishing Group.
Casner-Lotto, J., & Barrington, L. (2006). Are they really ready to work? Employers' perspectives on the basic knowledge and applied skills of new entrants to the 21st century US workforce. Washington: The Conference Board, Inc. Retrieved from: https://files.eric.ed.gov/fulltext/ED519465.pdf.
Chen, G., Gully, S. M., & Eden, D. (2001). Validation of a new general self-efficacy scale. Organizational Research Methods, 4(1), 62–83. https://doi.org/10.1177/109442810141004.
Costello, A., & Osborne, J. (2005). Best practices in exploratory factor analysis: Four recommendations for getting the most from your analysis. Practical Assessment, Research and Evaluation, 10(1), 1–9. https://doi.org/10.7275/jyj1-4868.
Covert, H. H. (2014). Stories of personal agency: Undergraduate students’ perceptions of developing intercultural competence during a semester abroad in Chile. Journal of Studies in International Education, 18(2), 162–179. https://doi.org/10.1177/1028315313497590.
Cubillos, J. H., & Ilvento, T. (2012). The impact of study abroad on students' self-efficacy perceptions. Foreign Language Annals, 45(4), 494–511. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1944-9720.2013.12002.x.
Dahling, J. J., Melloy, R., & Thompson, M. N. (2013). Financial strain and regional unemployment as barriers to job search self-efficacy: A test of social cognitive career theory. Journal of Counseling Psychology, 60(2), 210–218. https://doi.org/10.1037/a0031492.
Dinno, A. (2009). Exploring the sensitivity of horn’s parallel analysis to the distributional form of random data. Multivariate Behavioral Research, 44(3), 362–388. https://doi.org/10.1080/00273170902938969.
Dinno, A. (2019). Package “paran.” Retrieved from https://cran.r-project.org/web/packages/paran/index.html
Efron, B., & Tibshirani, R. J. (1994). An introduction to the bootstrap. Florida: CRC Press.
European Commission. (2018). Mid-term evaluation of the Erasmus+ programme (2014–2020). https://eur-lex.europa.eu/legal-content/EN/TXT/PDF/?uri=CELEX:52018DC0050&from=FR
Fabrigar, L. R., Wegener, D. T., MacCallum, R. C., & Strahan, E. J. (1999). Evaluating the use of exploratory factor analysis in psychological research. Psychological Methods, 4(3), 272–299. https://doi.org/10.1037/1082-989X.4.3.272.
Floyd, F. J., & Widaman, K. F. (1995). Factor analysis in the development and refinement of clinical assessment instruments. Psychological Assessment, 7(3), 286–299. https://doi.org/10.1037/1040-3590.7.3.286.
Ford, M. E. (1992). Motivating humans: Goals, emotions, and personal agency beliefs. Newbury Park, CA: Sage Publications.
Goodboy, A. K., & Kline, R. B. (2017). Statistical and practical concerns with published communication research featuring structural equation modeling. Communication Research Reports, 34(1), 68–77. https://doi.org/10.1080/08824096.2016.1214121.
Grether, T., Sowislo, J. F., & Wiese, B. S. (2018). Top-down or bottom-up? Prospective relations between general and domain-specific self-efficacy beliefs during a work-family transition. Personality and Individual Differences, 121, 131–139. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.paid.2017.09.021.
Guan, Y., Deng, H., Sun, J., Wang, Y., Cai, Z., Ye, L., Fu, R., Wang, Y., Zhang, S., & Li, Y. (2013). Career adaptability, job search self-efficacy and outcomes: A three-wave investigation among Chinese university graduates. Journal of Vocational Behavior, 83(3), 561–570. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jvb.2013.09.003.
Horn, J. L. (1965). A rationale and test for the number of factors in factor analysis. Psychometrika, 30, 179–185.
Jackson, D. L., Gillaspy, J. A., & Purc-Stephenson, R. (2009). Reporting practices in confirmatory factor analysis: An overview and some recommendations. Psychological Methods, 14(1), 6–23. https://doi.org/10.1037/a0014694.
Kim, J. G., Kim, H. J., & Lee, K. H. (2019). Understanding behavioral job search self-efficacy through the social cognitive lens: A meta-analytic review. Journal of Vocational Behavior, 112, 17–34. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jvb.2019.01.004.
Kline, R. B. (2010). Principles and practice of structural equation modeling (3rd ed.). New York: Guilford Press.
Kronholz, J. F., & Osborn, D. S. (2016). The impact of study abroad experiences on vocational identity among college students. Frontiers: The Interdisciplinary Journal of Study Abroad, 27, 70–84.
Latham, G. P., & Budworth, M. H. (2006). The effect of training in verbal self-guidance on the self-efficacy and performance of native north Americans in the selection interview. Journal of Vocational Behavior, 68(3), 516–523. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jvb.2005.11.005.
Lent, R. W., & Brown, S. D. (2013). Social cognitive model of career self-management: Toward a unifying view of adaptive career behavior across the life span. Journal of Counseling Psychology, 60(4), 557–568. https://doi.org/10.1037/a0033446.
Lent, R. W., Brown, S. D., & Hackett, G. (1994). Toward a unifying social cognitive theory of career and academic interest, choice, and performance. Journal of Vocational Behavior, 45(1), 79–122. https://doi.org/10.1006/jvbe.1994.1027.
Lent, R. W., Hackett, G., & Brown, S. D. (1999). A social cognitive view of school-to-work transition. The Career Development Quarterly, 47(4), 297–311. https://doi.org/10.1002/j.2161-0045.1999.tb00739.x.
Lent, R. W., Brown, S. D., & Hackett, G. (2000). Contextual supports and barriers to career choice: A social cognitive analysis. Journal of Counseling Psychology, 47(1), 36–49. https://doi.org/10.1037/0022-0167.47.1.36.
Little, T. D., Cunningham, W. A., Shahar, G., & Widaman, K. F. (2002). To parcel or not to parcel: Exploring the question, weighing the merits. Structural Equation Modeling: A Multidisciplinary Journal, 9(2), 151–173. https://doi.org/10.1207/S15328007SEM0902_1.
MacCallum, R. C., Roznowski, M., & Necowitz, L. B. (1992). Model modifications in covariance structure analysis: The problem of capitalization on chance. Psychological Bulletin, 111(3), 490–504.
MacCallum, R. C., Widaman, K. F., Zhang, S., & Hong, S. (1999). Sample size in factor analysis. Psychological Methods, 4(1), 84–99. https://doi.org/10.1037/1082-989X.4.1.84.
MacKinnon, D. P., Lockwood, C. M., & Williams, L. J. (2004). Confidence limits for the indirect effect: Distribution of the product and resampling methods. Multivariate Behavioral Research, 39(1), 99–128. https://doi.org/10.1207/s15327906mbr3901_4.
Martínez-Usarralde, M. J., Pausá, J. M., & García-López, R. (2017). The ERASMUS experience and its capacitating potential: Analysis of adaptive capabilities. International Journal of Educational Development, 53, 101–109. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ijedudev.2017.01.001.
Milstein, T. (2005). Transformation abroad: Sojourning and the perceived enhancement of self-efficacy. International Journal of Intercultural Relations, 29(2), 217–238. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ijintrel.2005.05.005.
Moynihan, L. M., Roehling, M. V., LePine, M. A., & Boswell, W. R. (2003). A longitudinal study of the relationships among job search self-efficacy, job interviews, and employment outcomes. Journal of Business and Psychology, 18(2), 207–233. https://doi.org/10.1023/A:1027349115277.
Mueller, R. O., & Hancock, G. R. (2008). Best practices in structural equation modeling. In J. W. Osborne (Ed.), Best practices in quantitative methods (pp. 488–508). Thousand Oaks: SAGE Publications.
Pajic, S., Ulceluse, M., Kismihók, G., Mol, S. T., & den Hartog, D. N. (2018). Antecedents of job search self-efficacy of Syrian refugees in Greece and the Netherlands. Journal of Vocational Behavior, 105, 159–172. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jvb.2017.11.001.
Petersdotter, L., Niehoff, E., & Freund, P. A. (2017). International experience makes a difference: Effects of studying abroad on students’ self-efficacy. Personality and Individual Differences, 107(1), 174–178. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.paid.2016.11.040.
Petruzziello, G., Mariani, M. G., Chiesa, R., & Guglielmi, D. (2020). Self-efficacy and job search success for new graduates. Personnel Review. Vol. ahead-of-print No. ahead-of-print., 50, 225–243. https://doi.org/10.1108/PR-01-2019-0009.
Podsakoff, P. M., MacKenzie, S. B., & Podsakoff, N. P. (2012). Sources of method bias in social science research and recommendations on how to control it. Annual Review of Psychology, 63, 539–569. https://doi.org/10.1146/annurev-psych-120710-100452.
Prazeres, L. (2017). Challenging the comfort zone: Self-discovery, everyday practices and international student mobility to the global south. Mobilities, 12(6), 908–923. https://doi.org/10.1080/17450101.2016.1225863.
Preacher, K. J., & Hayes, A. F. (2008). Asymptotic and resampling strategies for assessing and comparing indirect effects in multiple mediator models. Behavior Research Methods, 40(3), 879–891. https://doi.org/10.3758/BRM.40.3.879.
Revelle, W. (2019). Package “psych.” Retrieved from https://cran.r-project.org/web/packages/psych/index.html
Rosseel, Y. (2012). Lavaan: An R package for structural equation modeling. Journal of Statistical Software, 48(2), 1–36. https://doi.org/10.18637/jss.v048.i02.
Saks, A. M., & Ashforth, B. E. (1999). Effects of individual differences and job search behaviors on the employment status of recent university graduates. Journal of Vocational Behavior, 54(2), 335–349. https://doi.org/10.1006/jvbe.1998.1665.
Saks, A. M., Zikic, J., & Koen, J. (2015). Job search self-efficacy: Reconceptualizing the construct and its measurement. Journal of Vocational Behavior, 86, 104–114. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jvb.2014.11.007.
Scholz, U., Doña, B. G., Sud, S., & Schwarzer, R. (2002). Is general self-efficacy a universal construct? Psychometric findings from 25 countries. European Journal of Psychological Assessment, 18(3), 242–251. https://doi.org/10.1027//1015-5759.18.3.242.
Seltzer, B. K. (2013). The nomological network of self-efficacy and psychometric properties of its general and specific measures. (Unpublished doctoral dissertation). MN: University of Minnesota–Twin Cities.
Shelton, S. H. (1990). Developing the construct of general self-efficacy. Psychological Reports, 66(3), 987–994. https://doi.org/10.1177/003329419006600301.
Sherer, M., Maddux, J. E., Mercandante, B., Prentice-Dunn, S., Jacobs, B., & Rogers, R. W. (1982). The self-efficacy scale: Construction and validation. Psychological Reports, 51(2), 663–671. https://doi.org/10.2466/pr0.1982.51.2.663.
Song, Z., Uy, M. A., Zhang, S., & Shi, K. (2009). Daily job search and psychological distress: Evidence from China. Human Relations, 62(8), 1171–1197. https://doi.org/10.1177/0018726709334883.
Tolentino, L. R., Sibunruang, H., & Garcia, P. R. J. M. (2019). The role of self-monitoring and academic effort in students’ career adaptability and job search self-efficacy. Journal of Career Assessment, 27(4), 726–740. https://doi.org/10.1177/1069072718816715.
van Hooft, E, A, J., Kammeyer-Mueller, J, D., Wanberg, C, R., Kanfer, R., & Basbug, G. (2020). Job search and employment success: A quantitative review and future research agenda. Journal of Applied Psychology. Advance online publication. https://doi.org/10.1037/apl0000675.
Van Hoye, G., Van Hooft, E. A., Stremersch, J., & Lievens, F. (2019). Specific job search self-efficacy beliefs and behaviors of unemployed ethnic minority women. International Journal of Selection and Assessment, 27(1), 9–20. https://doi.org/10.1111/ijsa.12231.
Vande Berg, M. (2007). Intervening in the learning of US students abroad. Journal of Studies in International Education, 11(3–4), 392–399. https://doi.org/10.1177/1028315307303924.
Waibel, S., Rüger, H., Ette, A., & Sauer, L. (2017). Career consequences of transnational educational mobility: A systematic literature review. Educational Research Review, 20, 81–98. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.edurev.2016.12.001.
Williams, L. J., Vandenberg, R. J., & Edwards, J. R. (2009). Structural equation modeling in management research: A guide for improved analysis. The Academy of Management Annals, 3(1), 543–604. https://doi.org/10.1080/19416520903065683.
Worthington, R. L., & Whittaker, T. (2006). Scale development research: A content analysis and recommendations for best practices. The Counseling Psychologist, 34(6), 806–838. https://doi.org/10.1177/0011000006288127.
Yang, M., Webster, B., & Prosser, M. (2011). Travelling a thousand miles: Hong Kong Chinese students’ study abroad experience. International Journal of Intercultural Relations, 35(1), 69–78. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ijintrel.2010.09.010.
Zikic, J., & Saks, A. M. (2009). Job search and social cognitive theory: The role of career-relevant activities. Journal of Vocational Behavior, 74(1), 117–127. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jvb.2008.11.001.
Funding
The authors received no specific funding for this work.
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Corresponding author
Ethics declarations
Conflict of Interest
All authors declare that they have no conflict of interest.
Informed Consent
Informed consent was obtained from all individual participants included in the study.
Human Participants
This article contains a study with human participants. All of the procedures involving human participants were in accordance with the APA ethical standards.
Additional information
Publisher’s Note
Springer Nature remains neutral with regard to jurisdictional claims in published maps and institutional affiliations.
Rights and permissions
About this article
Cite this article
Emirza, S., Öztürk, E.B. & Şengönül, A.S. The quality of international mobility experiences, general self-efficacy and job search self-efficacy: A time-lagged investigation. Curr Psychol 40, 1580–1591 (2021). https://doi.org/10.1007/s12144-021-01394-3
Accepted:
Published:
Issue Date:
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s12144-021-01394-3