Self-efficacy and the development of undergraduates’ employability: An approach for a Bahraini public higher education institution

The Bahraini higher education sector was directed to contribute to the national economic growth by preparing work-ready graduates for the labour market. In 2008, Bahrain Polytechnic was established as one of the educational reform initiatives with a mission to develop graduates' employability and enterprise skills. This study explores the role of Bahrain Polytechnic in meeting its mission from the perspectives of the undergraduate students and staff members. It focuses on their perceptions of the institutional employability-based measures and if those influenced the students’ sense of self-efficacy. Yorke and Knight (2004a) and Pool and Sewell (2007) employability models as well as Bandura’s sources of self-efficacy (1994) were referred to for the study’s theoretical base. A mixed methods approach was applied to obtain data from 103 final year students regarding the scope of the study through a survey, followed by semi-structured interviews for 8 final-year students and 10 staff members.
The initial quantitative result showed most of the students had an average sense of self-efficacy toward their employability skills. It also showed that the curricular measures had high impact on the development of students’ employability, while the co-curricular measures influenced only those who utilised the services and participated in the co-curricular activities. The in-depth qualitative results supported the institutional developmental role in preparing the graduates for the market, the development of students’ employability skills, the implementation of measures that enhances students’ employability and influences their sense of self-efficacy, and that there are elements influencing the development of students’ sense of self-efficacy toward their employability skills.

The study contributes to acknowledging the importance of providing an operational approach to embed measures that enhance students' sense of self-efficacy to develop their employability skills. It also acknowledges the emerged self-related concepts other than self-efficacy which are self-awareness and self-confidence in an employability framework. It emphasises the importance of self-efficacy-enhancing elements. Finally, on an institutional level, it contributes to policy and practice by recognizing a mechanism to classify the curricular and co-curricular measures as per Bandura’s four sources of self-efficacy and on a national level for other higher education institutions in Bahrain.