Preliminary Study: Validation of Measure for Psychology Students Employability Skills

Abstract

The purpose of this study is to validate the measurement of Psychology students Employability Skills. This research used quantitative method by conducting two studies, exploratory and confirmatory studies. The sample used in this study was 206 Psychology students. The references in developing this measurement are SCANS (1992), The Conference Board of Canada (1992), Cotton (1993), Robinson (2000), Rosenberg (2012), Hamid (2014) which produced 87 questionnaire items with six aspects. The result of the Exploratory Factor Analysis (EFA) showed 27 items that are grouped together into five factors namely thinking skills, basic academic, interpersonal skills, technology skills, and personal qualities. The Confirmatory Factor Analysis (CFA) yields 16 items (CR = 0.81) with three factors namely Basic Academic (CR = 0.74), Thinking Skills (CR = 0.70), Sociability (CR = 0.64). The model of measurement is fit for the first-order (Chi-Square = 105.95, df = 93, p-value = 0.12, RMSEA = 0.029) and for second-order (Chi-Square = 101.21, df = 83, p-value = 0.066, RMSEA = 0.034). This measurement is able to provide an evaluation for Psychology students employability skills. Implication of this evaluation can be used to design intervention in enhancing employability skills among Psychology students.