Assessing Work-Integrated Learning Program Students' Sources of Career Development: A Validation Study

This full research paper presents the development of the Career Development Supports (CDS) instrument and established evidence of validity for utilizing the CDS in assessing engineering students' sources of career development within work-integrated learning (work-integrated learning) programs. Mentors in work-integrated learning programs (e.g., Co-op programs, internships, and workforce development programs) play a crucial role in developing students' informal and formal networking and promoting their persistence in the field. We propose the CDS survey, a name and resource generator that assesses how mentors support students' self-efficacy, outcome expectations and interest and goal development adapted from Lent's Social Cognitive Career Theory. We distributed the survey to two work-integrated learning programs over the course of a year: a large Co-op program at an R1 institution and a Defense funded microelectronics workforce development program. In total, 497 students completed the survey. We performed confirmatory factor analysis and examined data fit holistically with multiple absolute and relative fit indices. Our findings provide evidence that the CDS instrument can be used to assess work-integrated learning programs engineering students' sources of career development. Specifically, based on the confirmatory factor analysis, the CDS survey can be used to measure students in work-integrated learning programs sources of self-efficacy, career outcome expectations and interest and goal development. Researchers, faculty, and program managers can use the Career Development Supports instrument to understand the supports that students are not receiving and inform the supports, resources, and opportunities they provide to students.