The impact of university co-curricular activities on competency articulation proficiency: A mediated model

Abstract

To succeed after graduating, university students must develop and communicate their career-related competencies to hiring managers or graduate admissions committees. Co-curricular activities (e.g., volunteering, mentoring) coupled with reflection can facilitate students’ career exploration and help them understand, develop, and apply their career-related competencies. Yet, as a scientific community, we need to learn more about the role of co-curricular programming in helping students to effectively articulate their learned competencies. We draw on past research to develop and test a model of university student competency articulation proficiency. A serial mediation model predicted students’ learning goal orientation would influence their co-curricular engagement, which, in turn, would predict career exploration and decision-making self-efficacy and self-reported competency articulation proficiency. We surveyed 126 students enrolled in co-curricular programming at a university in North America. Results largely supported the hypothesized model. Learning goal orientation, directly and indirectly, affected career exploration and decision-making self-efficacy and competency articulation proficiency.