Dynamic career attitudes among master students: Social disparities in employment capabilities.

The preparation of students’ future career trajectories is a dynamic process in relation with social and educational determinants, but their interactions must be further investigated. Our objective is to analyze the associations between generic employment capabilities, career attitudes and other related factors among postgraduate students. Method: All master's students recorded in the Centre for Documentation and Information on Higher Education from Luxembourg database were contacted by letter to participate in an online questionnaire. The online questionnaire (French and English) with five scales was scored: 1) Dynamic Career Attitudes (DCA- 13 items); 2) Employability Soft-Skills (ESS-14); 3) Search for Work Self-Efficacy (SWSES - 12 items); 4) Quality of Life domain Autonomy (QLA- 4 items); and 5) Socio-demographical characteristics. The data were analyzed using bivariate tests, correlations and multiple linear regression models. Results: Of the 481 volunteers (26.4 years; SD=5.5) a majority were women, Luxembourgish, unemployed, and had less than or equal to six months of job experiences. Higher the ESS, SWSES and QLA scores, higher was the DCA score. Nationality, being unemployed, having less than six months of job experiences and being in the first year of master were associated with lower Dynamic Career Attitudes score. Conclusion: Covering the whole period of the master’s degree, internship activities and proactive workshops may be developed to improve generic employment capabilities and quality of autonomy. The Dynamic Career Attitudes scale appears an appropriate instrument to evaluate the efficacy of the university career services programme.