Dataset for "Employability Development in Undergraduate Programmes: How Different Is Liberal Arts Education?"

<p>This dataset accompanies the research study "Employability Development in Undergraduate Programmes: How Different Is Liberal Arts Education?" (https://doi.org/10.1080/13562517.2023.2212602). The study examines how students’ employability develops during undergraduate studies at a Dutch liberal arts college compared to a traditional bachelor’s programme in law at the same university. The study focuses on six skills that enhance employability: creativity, lifelong learning, career decidedness, self-efficacy, resilience, and personal initiative. To measure employability growth, a cross-sectional pseudo-cohort research design is adopted, comparing first-, second-, and third-year student cohorts.</p>

<p>The data was collected via an online survey that ran between September 20 and December 19, 2021. The final sample includes 558 responses.</p>

<p>The dataset includes the following variables:<br>
- Study_year: Study year;<br>
- Study_programme: Study programme (1 = liberal arts; 0 = law);<br>
- Academic_sec_ed: type of secondary education (1 = academic secondary education; 0 = non-academic general or vocational/technical secondary education);<br>
- High_school_GPA_rank: high school GPA ranking compared to other students in graduating class (on a 5-point scale, ranging from 1 = much lower than the average to 5 = much higher than the average);<br>
- Gap_year: gap year after high school (1 = yes; 0 = no);<br>
- First_gen: first-generation university student (1 = yes; 0 = no); <br>
- Work_before_HE: non-study-related work experience before higher education (1 = one month or more; 0 = less than one month);<br>
- Work_during_HE: non-study-related work experience during higher education (1 = one month or more; 0 = less than one month);<br>
- AUT_fluency: fluency score on Guilford’s (1967) Alternate Uses Task, measured as the total number of acceptable uses across two objects (newspaper and umbrella);<br>
- LLL: Lifelong learning score, measured by Wielkiewicz and Meuwissen’s (2014) WielkLLS 5-point scale;<br>
- CD: Career decidedness score, measured by the 5-point Likert scale developed by Lounsbury et al. (2005);<br>
- SE: Self-efficacy score, measured by the 4-point General Self-Efficacy Scale (Schwarzer & Jerusalem, 1995);<br>
- RSL: Resilience score, measured by the 5-point Brief Resilience Scale (Smith et al., 2008);<br>
- PI: Personal initiative score, measured by a shortened, 6-item version of Bledow and Frese's (2009) SJT-PI situational judgement test.</p>