Development of Undergraduate Employability Scale - Psychometric Approach

Abstract

Developing an instrument is a foundation for collecting high-quality data and obtaining credible research outputs. This paper discusses the procedure involved in generating and validating suitable items for an instrument designed to model required employability skills for inclusion in the curriculum meant for training students of Higher Education Institutions in Nigeria. The objective is to bridge the gap between what is taught and what is required by employers of labour, with a view to preparing the undergraduates appropriately for the world of work. Item generation passes through many stages. It starts with an extensive review of literature on graduate employability, writing and scrutinizing the items, correcting the items iteratively based on the feedback from team members, and subjecting the items to Stakeholders’ Analysis using representatives of University lecturers, students, employers of labour and Human Resource Managers. Before administering the final draft on the undergraduate students, the project team members responded to the draft for final correction. Thereafter, the items were refined, and finally scripted on ODK for pilot testing. A sample of 183 undergraduates responded to the pool of items. Data analysis produced the final draft that is made up of 129 items with 4 sub-sections. The scale is largely unidimensional, with the scree plot indicating a sharp decline after the first factor and the first factor accounting for 34.17% of the total variance. The scale is valid and it is usable for researchers and policymakers.