Hardiness,Perceived Employability,and Career Decision Self-Efficacy Among Taiwanese College Students

Abstract

Past empirical evidence has demonstrated that personality traits predict career decision self-efficacy. This study extends previous research by proposing and testing a model that examines the mediating roles of perceived internal and external employability on the relationship between personality hardiness and career decision self-efficacy. Using survey data collected from a sample of 220 college students in Taiwan, a hierarchical multiple regression analysis was conducted to test the hypotheses. The results showed that perceived internal employability partially mediated the relationship between hardiness and career decision self-efficacy, but perceived external employability did not. Implications for career counseling and suggestions for future research are discussed.

Keywords

hardiness perceived employability career decision self-efficacy college students

Career decision self-efficacy (CDSE) has been recognized by scholars as a crucial factor in influencing the career development process of young adults. CDSE refers to an individual’s beliefs that he or she can successfully complete the tasks necessary for career decision making (Taylor & Betz, 1983). Research on CDSE has been found to be positively related to career planning and exploration (Rogers, Creed, & Glendon, 2008), career choice commitment (Jin, Watkins, & Yuen, 2009), and vocational identity (Choi et al., 2012) while being negatively related to career indecision (Choi et al., 2012). Given its significance for the career development of young adults, investigating the factors that can contribute to promoting an individual’s CDSE has become a concern of scholars.

Both theoretical perspectives and empirical evidence suggest that personality traits could predict CDSE. Theoretically, Lent, Brown, and Hackett’s (1994) social cognitive career theory (SCCT) suggests that person inputs, such as personality traits, can affect the formation of self-efficacy beliefs, which in turn affect the career decision-making process. Empirically, several researchers have examined a variety of personality constructs as antecedents of CDSE, including the Big Five personality traits (Bullock-Yowell, Andrews, & Buzzetta, 2011; Hartman & Betz, 2007; Jin et al., 2009; Rogers et al., 2008), proactive personality (Hsieh & Huang, 2014), the healthy personality (Borgen & Betz, 2008), personality hardiness (Niles & Sowa, 1992), and core self-evaluations (Koumoundourou, Kounenou, & Siavara, 2012). However, to date, there is still a paucity of research investigating the mechanisms and processes through which personality traits relate to CDSE. Clarifying the mediating mechanisms is important because it can contribute to the nomological network of CDSE by answering questions pertaining to why personality traits relate to CDSE.

This study aims to address the issue mentioned earlier by investigating the mediating role of perceived employability on the relationship between personality hardiness and CDSE. As perceived employability is a person-centered construct, approached from the individual’s perspective (Fugate, Kinicki, & Ashforth, 2004), it seems likely to be affected by one’s personality traits. Indeed, a longitudinal study by Wille, De Fruyt, and Feys (2013) has shown that personality constructs, such as neuroticism and openness, significantly predict perceived employability. It is believed that personality hardiness could affect perceived employability as well because it has been found to be significantly associated with other personality traits, including neuroticism, extraversion, and openness (Eschleman, Bowling, & Alarcon, 2010; Zhang, 2011). Furthermore, in the literature, scholars have suggested two possible types of associations between perceived employability and self-efficacy. On one hand, it has been indicated that self-efficacy predicts perceived employability. For example, Lim and Loo (2003) argued that individuals with higher levels of self-efficacy are confident that they possess the skills and abilities to perform well in their future jobs and are confident of being employed, and these beliefs may translate into higher levels of perceived employability. Some studies (Kanfer, Wanberg, & Kantrowitz, 2001; Pinquart, Juang, & Silbereisen, 2003) have also found that higher levels of self-efficacy can lead to a successful school-to-work transition and to better chances of gaining employment. On the other hand, it has been suggested that perceived employability leads to a strengthening of self-efficacy beliefs. This notion is verified and supported by Berntson, Näswall, and Sverke’s (2008) longitudinal study, which definitely determined the causality between perceived employability and self-efficacy, and demonstrated that perceived employability is indeed an antecedent of self-efficacy.

Based on the tenets of SCCT (Lent, Brown, & Hackett, 1994), which posits personality traits as a predictor of self-efficacy, and rigorous evidence from previous longitudinal studies, which confirms that personality traits could predict perceived employability (Wille, De Fruyt, & Feys, 2013) and perceived employability could predict self-efficacy (Berntson, Näswall, & Sverke, 2008), this study decided to investigate perceived employability as a mediating mechanism that links personality hardiness and CDSE. The achievement of this goal may not only contribute to the literature by enriching understanding of how personality traits such as hardiness can work to affect an individual’s CDSE but can also suggest avenues for career counselors to promote college students’ CDSE.

Perceived Employability

Following Rothwell, Herbert, and Rothwell (2008, p. 2), for undergraduates, perceived employability is defined as “the perceived ability to attain sustainable employment appropriate to one’s qualification level.” Several scholars (e.g., Rothwell & Arnold, 2007; Rothwell et al., 2008; Rothwell, Jewell, & Hardie, 2009) have suggested that perceived employability is a multidimensional construct comprising both internal and external aspects. Perceived internal employability (PIE) refers to an individual’s perceptions of employability relating to his or her own (internal) skills and abilities, engagement with study and academic performance, and ambition, whereas perceived external employability (PEE) refers to an individual’s perceptions of employability regarding the state of the external labor market, the strength of the university brand, and the demand for his or her subject areas (Rothwell et al., 2008). This study includes both PIE and PEE in the empirical investigation because addressing the internal–external distinction may provide career counselors with insights into better design and implement career interventions to facilitate college students’ CDSE.

Hardiness and CDSE

The concept of hardiness was first described by Kobasa (1979) as a personality characteristic or disposition associated with continued good performance and mental health in stressful situations. Hardiness is defined as “a constellation of personality characteristics that function as a resistance resource when encountering stressful life events” (Kobasa, Maddi, & Kahn, 1982, p. 169). The construct of hardiness is emerging as a composite of three interrelated attitudes, namely, commitment, control, and challenge (Kobasa, 1979; Kobasa et al., 1982; Maddi, 2002). Commitment refers to one’s sense of meaning that is expressed by way of an active engagement and involvement with others and events. Control represents one’s beliefs that one is able to control events that happen in one’s life. Challenge reflects the extent to which a person generally perceives change as normal and as an opportunity for growth. Research has shown that hardiness is positively associated not only with working adults’ physical and psychological well-being (Eschleman et al., 2010) but also with college students’ learning motivation (Cole, Feild, & Harris, 2004), school attitudes (Maddi, Harvey, Khoshaba, Fazel, & Resurreccion, 2009), and school performance (Maddi, Harvey, Khoshaba, Fazel, & Resurreccion, 2012).

There are both a theoretical rationale and empirical evidence for the contention that hardiness may stimulate CDSE. Theoretically, according to SCCT (Lent et al., 1994), personality traits are conceived as a precursor that can affect the formation of self-efficacy beliefs. Individuals with higher levels of hardiness generally appraise stressful situations or events as being less threatening and may experience less harmful physical and psychological strain that can restrict their ability to be productive (Eschleman et al., 2010). Hardy individuals seem relatively unrestricted by, and cope actively with, stressful situations, and thus should have a greater sense of self-determination and self-efficacy in their lives. Empirically, a meta-analysis by Eschleman, Bowling, and Alarcon (2010) showed that hardiness is positively associated with self-efficacy. Moreover, Niles and Sowa (1992) found that the commitment component of hardiness had a positive impact on CDSE in a sample of college students. In their study, Borgen and Betz (2008) reported that a healthy personality positively predicts CDSE. As hardiness is a kind of healthy personality trait (Kobasa, 1979; Zhang, 2011), it is expected that hardiness would be positively related to CDSE. In line with the above-mentioned theoretical reasoning and empirical evidence, it is suggested that hardiness is positively related to CDSE. In the following sections, this study seeks to explain how hardiness relates to CDSE through the mediation of perceived employability.

The Mediating Role of Perceived Employability on the Hardiness–CDSE Relationship

Although hardiness may predict CDSE, this study also proposes that this relationship is mediated by perceived employability. PIE can be viewed as a reflection of individuals’ self-confidence in their own skills and abilities, engagement with study and academic performance, and ambition (Rothwell et al., 2008). Hardy individuals are more likely to be confident about their skills and abilities to perform well in their future jobs, to be highly engaged with their study and academic performance, and to be highly ambitious, because they are deeply committed to and engaged in many different life domains, control what happens in their lives, and perceive difficult situations as challenging and as opportunities for growth (Kobasa, 1979; Kobasa et al., 1982), thereby strengthening their PIE. On the other hand, hardiness can affect PEE by eliciting the existential courage and motivation that help one to turn stressful situations from potential disasters into growth opportunities (Maddi, 2004, 2006; Maddi, Khoshaba, Harvey, Fazel, & Resurreccion, 2011). In the perception and evaluation of stressful situations, Bartone, Ursano, Wright, and Ingraham (1989) likened hardy individuals to optimists who are inclined to perceive challenges in a positive light. In other words, hardy individuals are apt to focus on the silver lining of any situation because they tend to appraise stressful situations as less threatening, make more positive appraisals of stressors, and use transformational coping strategies (e.g., they cope with stressors in an optimistic and active way) to turn potentially stressful situations into opportunities for growth (Maddi, 2002; Maddi & Khoshaba, 2005). As a result, based on their optimistic cognitive appraisal, hardy individuals are more likely to hold optimistic views about their employment opportunities in the external labor market, make positive appraisals of their university’s reputation, and perceive their subject areas as highly desirable and as being in high demand in the external labor market. Therefore, it is expected that hardiness would promote one’s perceived employability.

There is indeed previous evidence of the positive relationship between perceived employability and self-efficacy. For example, Creed, Bloxsome, and Johnston (2001) suggested that employability-enhancing activities, such as education and training, can affect the level of self-efficacy among unemployed individuals. By conducting a cross-lagged analysis, Berntson et al. (2008) investigated the causal relationship between perceived employability and self-efficacy and confirmed that perceived employability positively predicted self-efficacy. A recent study by Yousaf and Sanders (2012) suggested that perceived employability can lead to the strengthening of self-efficacy. Because CDSE is conceptually derived from Bandura’s (1986) self-efficacy theory and empirical research (Betz & Klein, 1996) has indeed shown that CDSE is strongly related to generalized self-efficacy, it is plausible to expect that CDSE is also likely to be affected by perceived employability. Amalgamating the aforementioned arguments, this study proposes the following hypotheses:
Hypothesis 1: PIE mediates the relationship between hardiness and CDSE.

Hypothesis 2: PEE mediates the relationship between hardiness and CDSE.

Method

Participants and Procedure

The participants in this study were 220 college students (76 males and 144 females) majoring in Business Administration and Management from two colleges located in Kaohsiung city in Taiwan. The age of the students ranged from 20 to 22 years, and the mean age for the sample was 20.95 years (SD = 0.68). Of the 220 participants, 31.4% (n = 69) were juniors and 68.6% (n = 151) were seniors. The study conducted a priori power analysis (Soper, 2014) to determine the minimum sample size required for a hierarchical multiple regression analysis. This analysis revealed that when an estimate of sample size was made assuming a medium effect size (Cohen’s f ² = .15) with a power level of .80 and an α level of .05, the minimum required sample size was estimated at 80. Accordingly, this study had a sufficient sample size to achieve adequate power for a hierarchical multiple regression analysis.

The researcher contacted the course instructors and requested their permission for their students’ participation. Upon the instructors’ approval, the researcher arrived at the classes on the agreed date, distributed the informed consent form to the students in the class, and asked for their consent to voluntarily participate in this survey. The participants received one questionnaire and a cover letter that explained the purpose of the study. The participants were asked to complete the questionnaires during regular class time and return them directly to the researcher and were assured of confidentiality and were informed that their responses would be anonymous and used only for this research. They received no form of compensation or credit for their involvement in the study.

Measures

Hardiness

Hardiness was assessed using the 15-item Dispositional Resilience Scale (DRS; Bartone, 1995) that improves on the earlier instrument, the Dispositional Hardiness Scale (DHS, Bartone, Ursano, Wright, & Ingraham, 1989), including both positively and negatively keyed items, and covers the three important hardiness facets of commitment, control, and challenge. The hardiness scale consists of 5 items for each of the three subscales, that is, commitment (e.g., “Most days, life is really interesting and exciting for me”), control (e.g., “It is up to me to decide how the rest of my life will be”), and challenge (e.g., “I enjoy the challenge when I have to do more than one thing at a time”). Respondents were asked to indicate the extent of their agreement with each statement on a 4-point Likert-type scale ranging from 1 (strongly disagree) to 4 (strongly agree). As Maddi (2002, p. 175) asserted that “the combined hardy attitudes of commitment, control, and challenge constitute the best available operationalization of existential courage,” this study combined these three subscales into an overall measure of hardiness. Responses to all items of the scale were averaged to form a total hardiness score. Zhang (2011) reported an adequate internal consistency reliability and cross-cultural validity of this scale in a sample of Chinese university students. In this study, the Cronbach’s α for the entire scale was .77.

Perceived employability

Perceived employability was measured using the scale developed by Rothwell et al. (2008) that consists of two subscales, namely, PIE and PEE. To assess PIE, this study followed Rothwell et al.’s (2008) conceptualization to include 2 items concerned with confidence in one’s own skills and abilities (e.g., “I feel I could get any job so long as my skills and experience are reasonably relevant”), 2 items concerned with engagement with study and academic performance (e.g., “I regard my academic work as top priority”), and 5 items concerned with one’s ambition (e.g., “I regard myself as highly ambitious”). On the other hand, PEE was assessed with 10 items concerned with the state of the external labor market (e.g., “People in the career I am aiming for are in high demand in the external labor market”), the strength of the university brand (e.g., “The status of this university is a significant asset to me in job seeking”), and the demand for their subject areas (e.g., “Employers specifically target this university in order to recruit individuals from my subject area(s)”). Respondents had to indicate to what extent they agreed with these statements using a 5-point Likert-type scale ranging from 1 (strongly disagree) to 5 (strongly agree). Rothwell, Jewell, and Hardie (2009) reported coefficient αs of .72 for internal employability and of .71 for external employability, and demonstrated cross-cultural validity of this scale with a multicultural sample of British, Black, Asian, and Chinese postgraduate students. In this study, the Cronbach’s α was .76 for PIE and .85 for PEE.

Career Decision Self-Efficacy Scale Short Form

Betz, Klein, and Taylor’s (1996) 25-item Career Decision Self-Efficacy Scale–Short Form (CDSES-SF) was used to assess college students’ self-efficacy in making career-related decisions. The CDSES-SF contains 5 items for each of the five subscales: self-appraisal (e.g., “Determine what your ideal job would be”), gathering occupational information (e.g., “Use the Internet to find information about occupations that interest you”), goal selection (e.g., “Choose a major or career that will fit your interests”), planning (e.g., “Determine the steps you need to successfully complete your chosen major”), and problem solving (e.g., “Persistently work at your major or career goal even when you get frustrated”). Responses were obtained using a 5-point Likert-type scale ranging from 1 (no confidence at all) to 5 (complete confidence), with higher scores indicating a higher degree of CDSE. Following the majority of prior research on CDSE (Choi et al., 2012) that commonly combined these five subscales into an overall measure of CDSE, this study combined these five subscales to form a composite. Responses to the 25-item CDSES-SF were averaged to form a total CDSE score. A cross-cultural study by Mau (2000) reported that the Cronbach’s α for the CDSES-SF was .92 and the test–retest reliability was .83, suggesting that it is a reliable instrument when used with Taiwanese college students. In this study, the Cronbach’s α for the entire scale was .91.

Control variables

The demographic variables of gender (1 = male and 0 = female) and age (in years) were included as control variables because previous research has suggested that they may be related to CDSE (Choi et al., 2012). Moreover, the dispositional variables of positive and negative affectivities were included as control variables because partialling out the effects of the respondents’ general affectivity might be useful to reduce the possibility of common method bias (Podsakoff, MacKenzie, Lee, & Podsakoff, 2003). Positive and negative affectivities were measured using the 20-item Positive and Negative Affect Schedule (PANAS) scale (Watson, Clark, & Tellengen, 1988). Respondents were requested to indicate the extent to which they generally felt each affective description in the scale. The range of extent varied from 1 (not at all) to 5 (very much). The Cronbach’s α was .77 for positive affectivity and .75 for negative affectivity.

Translation of Measures

Because all measures (i.e., hardiness, perceived employability, CDSE, and positive and negative affectivities) used in this study were originally English-language scales, a back-translation procedure (Brislin, 1980) was taken to ensure the accuracy and semantic equivalence of translations from English into traditional Chinese. The researcher first translated the English version of the measures into traditional Chinese and then two bilingual experts back-translated the traditional Chinese version of the measures into English. Discrepancies between the original and the back-translated versions were discussed by the researcher and the two experts, and revisions were made to those items that were translated inaccurately. This review process was repeated until a consensus concerning the accuracy and semantic equivalence of the translation was achieved.

Results

Construct Validity of Measures

Before testing the hypotheses, this study conducted a confirmatory factor analysis (CFA) to verify the psychometric properties of the measures. Model fit was evaluated using the following indices: the comparative fit index (CFI), the Tucker–Lewis Index (TLI), root mean square error of approximation (RMSEA), and standardized root mean square residual (SRMR). CFI and TLI values close to .95 indicate a good fit (Hu & Bentler, 1999), while RMSEA values between .06 and .08 indicate a reasonable fit (MacCallum, Browne, & Sugawara, 1996), and SRMR values of .08 or below indicate a good fit (Hu & Bentler, 1999). Table 1 presents the CFA results, which indicate that the six-factor model (i.e., hardiness, PIE, PEE, CDSE, positive affectivity, and negative affectivity) fit the data better, χ²(512) = 1023.71, p < .01, CFI = .95, TLI = .94, RMSEA = .07, SRMR = .07, than the other five models that comprised a fewer number of factors assuming that some of the above-mentioned six factors fail to be discriminated from each other. Furthermore, the χ² difference tests demonstrated that the six-factor model was a better fit than the other five models (see Models 2–6, Table 1). These two results provide evidence for the attainment of satisfactory discriminant validity of the six constructs. Moreover, the factor loadings of the measurement indicators in each of the six constructs are statistically significant (p < .05), suggesting that the convergent validity of the measures is acceptable (Anderson & Gerbing, 1988). Based on the above-mentioned results, the study concludes that the psychometric properties of the measures used in this study are statistically adequate.

Table 1.
Goodness-of-Fit Indices for Confirmatory Factor Analysis.

Model χ² df CFI TLI RMSEA SRMR Δχ²(Δdf)

1. Six-factor model 1023.71 512 .95 .94 .07 .07 —

2. Five-factor model 1^a 1425.40 517 .93 .92 .09 .09 401.69 (5)

3. Five-factor model 2^b 1327.83 517 .93 .92 .09 .09 304.12 (5)

4. Five-factor model 3^c 1981.55 517 .90 .90 .11 .09 957.84 (5)

5. Four-factor model^d 1540.34 521 .91 .90 .10 .09 516.63 (9)

6. One-factor model 2399.49 527 .87 .86 .13 .10 1375.78** (15)

Note. CFI = comparative fit index; TLI = Tucker–Lewis Index; RMSEA = root mean square error of approximation; SRMR = standardized root mean square residual. The values of Δχ² and Δdf are differences between the six-factor model and the other models. ^aThis model combines perceived internal employability and perceived external employability into one factor. ^bThis model combines perceived internal employability and career decision self-efficacy into one factor. ^cThis model combines perceived external employability and career decision self-efficacy into one factor. ^dThis model combines positive affectivity, negative affectivity, and career decision self-efficacy into one factor.

p < .01.

Descriptive Statistics and Correlations

Table 2 presents the descriptive statistics, reliabilities, and correlations of the variables. As expected, the results showed that hardiness was positively correlated with PIE (r = .46, p < .01), PEE (r = .33, p < .01), and CDSE (r = .50, p < .01). Both PIE and PEE were positively correlated with CDSE (r = .54, p < .01 and r = .39, p < .01, respectively). PIE and PEE were positively correlated (r = .61, p < .01).

Table 2.
Means, Standard Deviations, and Correlations of the Variables.

Variable M SD 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8

1. Gender .35 .48 —

2. Age 20.92 .84 .14 —

3. PA 3.48 .64 .02 .04 (.77)

4. NA 2.70 .59 −.07 .04 −.24 (.75)

5. Hardiness 2.77 .34 −.06 −.03 .51 −.38 (.77)

6. PIE 3.17 .59 .07 −.06 .47 −.23 .46 (.76)

7. PEE 3.31 .57 .01 .02 .42 −.10 .33 .61 (.85)

8. CDSE 3.45 .48 .06 −.04 .40 −.19 .50 .54 .39** (.91)

Note. PA = positive affectivity; NA = negative affectivity; PIE = perceived internal employability; PEE = perceived external employability; CDSE = career decision self-efficacy. Cronbach’s α is in parentheses.

*p < .05. **p < .01.

Hypothesis Testing

Hypotheses 1 and 2 proposed that both PIE and PEE mediate the relationship between hardiness and CDSE. To test for multiple mediation, the study adopted Preacher and Hayes’s (2008) analytic strategy that incorporates Baron and Kenny’s (1986) approach, the normal theory approach (i.e., the Sobel test), and a bootstrap approach to estimate the indirect effects in a multiple mediator model. As shown in Table 3, the results showed that (a) hardiness was positively related to CDSE (β = .41, p < .001); (b) hardiness was positively related to both PIE (β = .29, p < .001) and PEE (β = .18, p < .05); (c) after controlling for hardiness, PIE was positively related to CDSE (β = .32, p < .001), but PEE was not (β = .06, ns); and (d) the previously significant effects of hardiness on CDSE became weaker (the regression coefficients dropped from .41 to .31, p < .001) after mediators (PIE and PEE) were taken into account. The above-mentioned results suggested that PIE partially mediated the relationship between hardiness and CDSE, but PEE did not (Baron & Kenny, 1986). To further examine the significance of the mediation effect of PIE, the study utilized the Sobel test (Sobel, 1982) and the 95% bias-corrected confidence interval (BC CI) analyses with 5,000 bootstrap samples to test their significance. The Sobel test showed that the mediation effect of PIE was significant (Z = 2.99, p < .01). This finding was also confirmed by the bootstrap results, which demonstrated a bootstrapped 95% BC CI around the mediation effect that did not contain zero [.05, .23]. Taken together, these above-mentioned results provided support for Hypothesis 1 but not for Hypothesis 2. Figure 1 depicts the results of the final model.

Figure 1.
The mediating role of perceived employability between hardiness and CDSE. Note. PIE = perceived internal employability; PEE = perceived external employability; CDSE = career decision self-efficacy. Standardized path coefficients (β) are shown. p < .05. p < .01. p < .001.

Table 3.
Summary of the Mediation Test for Predicting CDSE.

Dependent Variables PIE PEE CDSE

Model 1 Model 2 Model 3 Model 4 Model 5 Model 6 Model 7

Step 1: Control variables

Gender .06 .09 .01 .02 .06 .09 .06

Age −.08 −.07 .01 .01 −.06 −.05 −.03

Positive affectivity .45* .32* .42* .34* .38* .20 .07

Negative affectivity −.11 −.03 .01 .05 −.09 .03 .03

Step 2: Predictor

Hardiness .29*** .18* .41* .31*

Step 3: Mediators

PIE .32*

PEE .06

R ² .25* .30* .17* .19* .17* .29* .38*

R ² Change .05*** .02* .12* .09*

F values 17.54* 18.52* 11.29* 10.32* 11.25* 17.15* 18.37***

Note. PIE = perceived internal employability; PEE = perceived external employability; CDSE = career decision self-efficacy. Standardized regression coefficients (β) are shown in each equation. N = 220.

p < .05. p < .01. p < .001.

Discussion

This study extends previous research by proposing and testing a model that examines the mediation effects of PIE and PEE on the relationship between personality hardiness and CDSE. Consistent with the tenets of SCCT (Lent et al., 1994) that posit personality traits as a predictor of self-efficacy, the results of this study offer empirical support for a significant and positive relationship between hardiness and CDSE. This suggests that college students with higher levels of hardiness and resilience possess higher levels of mental health and strength when encountering stressful situations or events and are therefore inclined to feel more efficacious in terms of making career decisions than those with lower levels.

Consistent with the expectations of Hypothesis 1, the results of this study confirm that PIE mediates the relationship between hardiness and CDSE. Numerous previous studies have shown that CDSE can be predicted by a variety of personality constructs, including the Big Five personality traits (Bullock-Yowell et al., 2011; Hartman & Betz, 2007; Jin et al., 2009; Rogers et al., 2008), proactive personality (Hsieh & Huang, 2014), the healthy personality (Borgen & Betz, 2008), core self-evaluations (Koumoundourou et al., 2012), and the commitment component of personality hardiness (Niles & Sowa, 1992). However, few studies have dealt with the mechanisms through which personality traits relate to CDSE. The results of this study can fill the research gap and contribute to the career literature by supporting the use of PIE as a mechanism linking hardiness and CDSE. The finding that college students’ PIE explains, in part, the impact of their personality hardiness on CDSE is an important first step in investigating the mechanisms through which personality traits relate to CDSE. There remains room, however, for researchers to explore other mediating mechanisms to account for the effects of personality traits on CDSE.

Contrary to the expectations of Hypothesis 2, although hardiness was positively related to PEE, the results showed that PEE did not transmit a significant portion of the effects of hardiness to CDSE. A possible reason might be that, compared with PIE, PEE has a weaker association with CDSE. As Rothwell et al. (2008, p. 9) argued, PIE is “more closely related to beliefs of personal efficacy.” Therefore, when simultaneously entering PIE and PEE into the regression equation, it is plausible that PIE accounted for a large amount of the total variance in CDSE, whereas PEE did not add any incremental or significant explanatory variance to CDSE. In order to verify this explanation, the study excluded PIE from the regression equation and repeated the mediation analysis. This additional analysis supported the explanations and revealed that PEE could mediate the hardiness–CDSE relationship. This suggests that it might be more appropriate to separate perceived employability into PIE and PEE. The internal–external distinction can then be used to describe college students’ perceptions of employability in detail because the two are related but separate constructs, possibly with different causes and consequences. This study extends previous research (Berntson et al., 2008) by advancing understanding that CDSE is influenced by PIE but not by PEE, which would contribute to clarifying the relationship between perceived employability and self-efficacy.

Finally, cultural differences may act as an important boundary condition to the findings of this study. Mau’s (2000) cross-cultural study found that Taiwanese undergraduates have lower CDSE than American undergraduates and are more inclined to adopt a dependent career decision-making style because a collectivism-oriented culture may have influenced Taiwanese students to rely more on group efforts than on individual skills, abilities, and ambition when making career decisions. Given that this study was conducted in Taiwan which is characterized by a collectivist culture (Hofstede, 1997) that emphasizes social conformity and collective decisions, social relations and influence may become more salient and thus may attenuate the effect of PIE on CDSE. In contrast, the PIE-CDSE relationship may be intensified in individualist-culture countries (e.g., the United States and European countries) because individualism highlights the importance and necessity of making personal choices, forming judgments, and having one’s own opinions (Wierzbicka, 1994), which is more conducive to fostering self-efficacy. As a result, the relationship between PIE and CDSE may be considered conditional on different cultural contexts. Future research could simultaneously collect data from both collectivist and individualistic cultures to empirically examine whether cultural differences may moderate the PIE–CDSE relationship.

Practical Implications

Several practical implications can be derived from this study. First, the findings of the significantly positive relationship between hardiness and CDSE suggest that career counselors can facilitate college students’ CDSE by strengthening their hardiness and resilience. For example, previous research (Maddi, Kahn, & Maddi, 1998) has shown that an individual’s personality hardiness is not stable over time but can be increased through training. Individuals experiencing hardiness training have greater increases in personality hardiness and decreases in subjective strain. This suggests to career counselors that they could help college students enhance their CDSE by developing and implementing hardiness training interventions that encourage college students to make career commitments, exercise control over events that happen in their lives, and grow through the challenge of interaction with the world, with a special focus on cultivating their hardiness and resilience under stressful situations.

Second, the results also show that hardiness has an indirect effect on CDSE through PIE but not through PEE. This suggests that if career counselors aim to facilitate college students’ CDSE, they should devote their efforts to fostering students’ PIE. Thus, career counselors could implement career interventions targeted at promoting college students’ PIE, such as increasing their self-confidence in their own job-related skills and abilities, encouraging them to be highly engaged with study and academic performance, and strengthening their career ambition, which can help them become more confident in completing tasks related to career decision making.

Limitations and Future Research

A few limitations of this study should be noted. First, the sample collection is restricted to Taiwan; therefore, the cross-cultural generalizability of the results may be a concern. To broaden the applicability of the findings, future research could replicate the present model with samples from Western societies, which may provide direct evidence of and increased confidence in the generalizability of the findings across cultures.

The second limitation is that the cross-sectional design of this study precludes the extent to which causal relationships can be inferred from the findings, and the possibility of reverse causality cannot be excluded. For example, it is possible that CDSE could predict perceived employability which, in turn, leads to higher levels of hardiness. Therefore, this study cannot unequivocally determine the direction of causality, and the explanation of the findings should be made with caution. It is recommended that future research expand the findings of this cross-sectional study by replicating the present model through a longitudinal research design in order to allow for more definitive causal conclusions.

The third limitation is that, since all data are self-reported and collected from the same respondents, the associations between variables might have suffered from the problem of common method variance (CMV). However, some precautions were taken in this study to avoid, or at least minimize, the effect of CMV. First, several procedural precautions recommended by Podsakoff, MacKenzie, Lee, and Podsakoff (2003) were taken: (a) to increase respondent candidness, the respondents were assured of confidentiality and were informed that their individual responses would be anonymous, (b) to decrease respondent evaluation apprehension, the study explicitly assured respondents that there were no right or wrong answers to the measures in the survey, and (c) to prevent illusory correlations caused by respondents’ implicit assumptions, the study adopted a psychological separation by simplifying the descriptions of each measure, and tried to make it appear that connections between the measures of both predictor and criterion variables did not exist. Second, according to Podsakoff et al. (2003), the dispositional general affectivity of the respondents may be a potential source of CMV in the research using single-source, self-reported data. It might be useful to partial out the effects of the respondents’ general affectivity to reduce the possibility of CMV. Thus, the study included the measures of the respondents’ positive and negative affectivities in the regression analyses and found that after controlling for their effects on CDSE, the relationship between hardiness and CDSE and the mediation of PIE on the hardiness–CDSE relationship remained significant. These steps helped to remove the doubt regarding the validity of the findings. Although this study was unable to rule out fully the contamination problem caused by CMV, the above-mentioned cautious treatments helped to strengthen the confidence of the findings of this study.

To expand on the current findings, future research may aim at exploring whether the effects of personality traits interact with the effects of contextual factors to influence college students’ CDSE. For example, Lent, Brown, and Hackett (2000) suggested that person inputs interacting with contextual supports and barriers can affect an individual’s career choice goals. Future studies could also focus on exploring the potential interaction effects between personality traits and social support or career barriers on college students’ CDSE, which would contribute to a deeper understanding of the role personality traits play in the career development process of young adults.

Model	χ²	df	CFI	TLI	RMSEA	SRMR	Δχ²(Δdf)
1. Six-factor model	1023.71	512	.95	.94	.07	.07	—
2. Five-factor model 1^a	1425.40	517	.93	.92	.09	.09	401.69** (5)
3. Five-factor model 2^b	1327.83	517	.93	.92	.09	.09	304.12** (5)
4. Five-factor model 3^c	1981.55	517	.90	.90	.11	.09	957.84** (5)
5. Four-factor model^d	1540.34	521	.91	.90	.10	.09	516.63** (9)
6. One-factor model	2399.49	527	.87	.86	.13	.10	1375.78** (15)

Variable	M	SD	1	2	3	4	5	6	7	8
1. Gender	.35	.48	—
2. Age	20.92	.84	.14	—
3. PA	3.48	.64	.02	.04	(.77)
4. NA	2.70	.59	−.07	.04	−.24**	(.75)
5. Hardiness	2.77	.34	−.06	−.03	.51**	−.38**	(.77)
6. PIE	3.17	.59	.07	−.06	.47**	−.23**	.46**	(.76)
7. PEE	3.31	.57	.01	.02	.42**	−.10	.33**	.61**	(.85)
8. CDSE	3.45	.48	.06	−.04	.40**	−.19**	.50**	.54**	.39**	(.91)

Dependent Variables	PIE	PEE	CDSE
Step 1: Control variables
Gender	.06	.09	.01	.02	.06	.09	.06
Age	−.08	−.07	.01	.01	−.06	−.05	−.03
Positive affectivity	.45***	.32***	.42***	.34***	.38***	.20**	.07
Negative affectivity	−.11	−.03	.01	.05	−.09	.03	.03
Step 2: Predictor
Hardiness		.29***		.18*		.41***	.31***
Step 3: Mediators
PIE							.32***
PEE							.06
R ²	.25***	.30***	.17***	.19***	.17***	.29***	.38***
R ² Change		.05***		.02*		.12***	.09***
F values	17.54***	18.52***	11.29***	10.32***	11.25***	17.15***	18.37***

Footnotes

Declaration of Conflicting Interests

The author(s) declared no potential conflicts of interest with respect to the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.

Funding

The author(s) received no financial support for the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.

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Dependent Variables	PIE		PEE		CDSE
Dependent Variables	Model 1	Model 2	Model 3	Model 4	Model 5	Model 6	Model 7
Step 1: Control variables
Gender	.06	.09	.01	.02	.06	.09	.06
Age	−.08	−.07	.01	.01	−.06	−.05	−.03
Positive affectivity	.45***	.32***	.42***	.34***	.38***	.20**	.07
Negative affectivity	−.11	−.03	.01	.05	−.09	.03	.03
Step 2: Predictor
Hardiness		.29***		.18*		.41***	.31***
Step 3: Mediators
PIE							.32***
PEE							.06
R ²	.25***	.30***	.17***	.19***	.17***	.29***	.38***
R ² Change		.05***		.02*		.12***	.09***
F values	17.54***	18.52***	11.29***	10.32***	11.25***	17.15***	18.37***