Research On The Master Of Engineering Graduates’ Employability And Its Influencing Factors

As one of the most important subjects in higher education and human resource development, the field of employability is attracting an increasing amount of attention from higher education institutions and practical sectors. Master of Engineering (MEng) graduates’ employability is about having the ability to gain initial employment, maintain employment and obtain new employment if required. What attention should be paid to the graduates’ employability is not only the initial employment quality, but also the long-term career development quality. This research focuses on the employability for master of engineering graduates, and we summarizes the contents of the reform of Chinese graduate education, and points out the direction and key points of graduates’ competency cultivation.Through theoretical and empirical study, this research examines the Master of Engineering graduates’ employability and its influencing factors. According to the common understanding and the results of co-word analysis, we classify MEng graduates’ competency into specific and generic competency, and build the Chinese MEng graduates’ competency model. Through the analysis of the concept of employability and the construction of competency model, we determine the main variables, and design the questionnaire. Then, by using PLS and SPSS software, we analyze the data and obtain a series of conclusions.There are different mechanisms and effects of course, internship and dissertation on MEng graduates’ employability. Course has a positive effect on specific and generic competency. Internship has significant relationship with specific competency development, while the effect of internship on generic competency is insignificant. Dissertation component exhibits the most significant effect both on specific and generic competency. After further analysis of these results, we point that course is the fundamental part of cultivation and internship study should be strengthened. The deep involvement of supervisors, requirement of high proactive personality, and combination of trining based on course and internship indicate that dissertation component contributes most to MEng graduates’ competency. These analyses reveal many influential factors on graduates’ employability such as the foundational status of course, learners’ internal factors, supervisors’ mentoring etc, and we should deeply explore the effect mechanism.In order to further examine the mechanism of the components on MEng graduates’ employability, we select some variables to explore the relationship above, such as proactive personality, career goals, relationship quality and thriving. The findings show that both theoretical and practical courses are positively related to MEng graduates’employability; internship partially mediates theoretical course and employability; and proactive personality shows a moderating effect on the relationship between practical course and employability. Career goals positively associate with MEng graduates’ internship effect and employability; intrinsic career goals play a more important role than extrinsic career goals; internship mediates the relationship of MEng graduates’ career goals and their employability. High quality relationship between MEng graduates-supervisors and MEng graduates-coworkers are positively related to graduates’ internship effectiveness; internship thriving mediates the relationship of relationship quality and internship effectiveness; course strengthens the effect of high relationship quality between graduates-supervisors on internship. Based on these conclusions, some suggestions are put forward combined with the practice of MEng cultivation in China.Cultivation for Master of Engineering should deepen the curriculum reform, strengthen the construction of theoretical and practical course system, and enhance the systematization of cultivating components. Theoretical course should reinforce the training of professional knowledge, base theory and scientific research methods, practical course should focus more on the comprehensive application of base theory and scientific method, develop the ability of find, analyze and solve practical problems. According to different traits and learning patterns of training components, cultivation units should consider the training objects and contents as a whole, organically combine the course and internship components. Considering internship training content during course component, and pay attention to the course contents during internship component, to enhance the MEng graduates’ employability.The cultivation process of Master of Engineering should be student centered, stimulate graduates’ intrinsic motivation, and exert graduates’ initiative. On the one hand, traditional teaching method of theoretical course should bechanged to arouse the MEng graduates’ learning interest, stimulate their enthusiasm of active learning; on the other hand, teaching content design should be combined the difference traits and objectives of course and internship, in order to promote the active learning through cultivation process, make graduates become the main subjects of learning and development.We should pay attention to MEng graduates’cultivation quality, and the quality of their long-term career development. Because the results indicate that the intrinsic career goals play a bigger role on internship and employability than extrinsic career goals, the intrinsic career goals should be given more attention during the cultivation process and career guidance. Let graduates spurn the short-sighted utilitarianism, set up a long-term outlook on career, emphasize the meaning of lifelong learning, and encourage graduates to pursue long term development.Internship is the key component of MEng graduates cultivation, and it is also a weak component at present. The master of engineering education institutions need to construct stable internship bases, determine the comprehensive practice plan, strengthen the research on the internal influence factors of internship effect. The nature of the internship is a process of learning, the enigeering education institutions should let MEng graduates clear the internship objective, and convey the concept to supervisors, build a harmounious relationship between supervisors and graduates, and improve the support of exploratory behaviors, trial and error learning taken by superviors. Improving MEng graduates’critical thinking in "learning-by-doing" process. Strengthening the research on supervisors’personality and competency, and establish necessary training system and incentive mechanism, improve the extramural supervisors’education knowledge, involvement and responsibility.On the construction of practice base, the engineering education institutions need communicate fully with the partners, to develop detailed training plan, clear the internship training objectives, build support and trust atmosphere, increase the belonging of MEng graduates. The engineering education institutions also need to confirm the standard of process evaluation and outcome evaluation, which could meet the practice bases’needs of graduates’performance, as well as the graduates’pursue of learning outcomes. In order to achieve the win-win goal of job performance and learning outcomes, reach the cultivation objectives of MEng graduates’employability development.