From part-time work to graduate employability: problem-solving skills and informal work-based learning among Asian students

Purpose This study frames student part-time jobs as informal work-based learning (WBL) to explore how Asian university students describe work-study conflicts and problem-solving skills linked to graduate employability. Design/methodology/approach Using corpus linguistics, researchers analyzed 10,114 ICNALE essays from nine Asian contexts. Ordinary least squares regression was used to evaluate two lexical indices that measure role-conflict and problem-solving vocabulary density, which serve as textual indicators of student writing rather than as psychological competency measures. Findings Conflict and skill language associate positively (B = +0.131, SE = 0.014, p < 0.001), though explaining modest variance (R2 = 0.099). Lower-income, Confucian-heritage contexts such as Vietnam exhibit the highest skill-discourse density. This supports an informal WBL perspective where economic necessity accompanies employability narratives. Research limitations/implications The cross-sectional design precludes causal claims. Future longitudinal studies are required to isolate developmental from selection effects in informal WBL. Practical implications Because findings reflect writing rather than measured workplace performance, policy inferences regarding work hours remain tentative. Institutions can use credit-bearing portfolios and career services to help students translate informal work into transferable-skill narratives. Social implications Acknowledging necessity-driven jobs as legitimate informal learning may foster more equitable access to employability development for disadvantaged student populations. Originality/value Bridging informal WBL and role-conflict theory, this multinational analysis moves beyond single-country self-reports to assess how students naturally construct competency in their writing.