Testing a New Measure of Perceived Professional Development Engagement for Undergraduates

Abstract

Professional development engagement (PDE) is the level of undergraduate engagement in professional development. Professional development (PD) is defined as “activities designed to help students prepare for a successful college-to-work transition.” This study tested a new 12-item measure of PDE for a complete-data sample of 437 undergraduate business students. The “did not use” response to an activity for each of the 10 CPDC items resulted in a surprisingly high aggregated loss of respondents. Results indicated that students who either never joined a student professional organization or never lived on or near Main Campus had a higher “did not use” response percentage.