Enhancing Career Readiness in Introduction to Psychology

Even though most undergraduate psychology students enter the workforce directly after graduation, psychology programs often lack adequate career preparation components. The American Psychological Association (APA) recognized this deficiency in their 2023 Guidelines for the Undergraduate Psychology Major, which emphasizes the critical need to develop transferable skills for career success. The current study uses a pre- and post-survey design to examine the effect of career readiness activities on student career readiness in an Introduction to Psychology course. The goals are twofold: to identify techniques to fill the gap identified by the APA by preparing undergraduate students for the workforce, and to contribute to the literature on the Scholarship of teaching and learning by examining teaching practices in large courses. Students were presented with four recorded workshops from the UC Riverside Career Center throughout the span of 10 weeks and engaged in related activities during their discussion sections. Results showed a significant difference in students’ career development and leadership competence between the pre- and post-surveys. This study is one of the first to investigate a potential technique for increasing career readiness in a diverse, large-enrollment course, and aims to enhance psychology major's and non-psychology majors’ experience through innovative teaching approaches.