ArticleBMC psychology2026
Psychological capital and job readiness among Chinese university students: the mediating role of career adaptability and the moderating effect of labour market pressure.
Article in BMC psychology, 2026. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Not yet cited in PubMed.
What it found
Each row is one number read from the abstract, on the scale the paper reported it, with its interval. Left of the dashed line favours the treatment, right favours the comparator. Under each row is the sentence it came from. New to these charts? A ten-minute tutorial.
The abstract states no effect estimate the extractor could read, or names no intervention and outcome on the map, so this paper lights no cell and moves no belief. It is still indexed, cited and linked below.
The trial behind it
Trials whose registry record cites this paper, or whose number appears in the abstract. A trial that started after this paper was published is citing it as background, not reporting it.
Neither the registry nor the abstract names a trial number. If this is a trial report, that itself is worth knowing.
Who cites it
0 citing papers in PubMed.
No citing paper in PubMed yet.
Corrections and comments
PubMed lists nothing against this paper. Absence here is not a guarantee, only a check that was made.
Authors and funding
3 authors.
Funding
Abstract
Today's competitive labour market poses substantial challenges to the work readiness and employability of recent university graduates. Psychological capital, comprising self-efficacy, hope, resilience, and optimism, is considered critical for supporting students' career transitions; however, its role in shaping job readiness has received limited empirical attention within the Chinese higher education context. This study examines the direct effects of psychological capital on job readiness, the mediating role of career adaptability, and the moderating influence of perceived labour market pressure. Using a stratified sample of 1,279 university students, structural equation modelling was employed for data analysis. The results indicate that self-efficacy, hope, resilience, and optimism significantly predict job readiness, with career adaptability demonstrating the strongest direct effect. Mediation analysis confirms that career adaptability mediates the relationships between self-efficacy, hope, resilience, optimism, and job readiness. Moderation analysis further reveals that labour market pressure weakens these relationships, highlighting the conditional influence of external labour market perceptions. The findings underscore the dynamic interplay between internal psychological resources, adaptive career behaviours, and external labour market conditions. These results offer important implications for higher education institutions, suggesting that interventions targeting psychological capital, career adaptability, and perceptions of labour market pressure may enhance students' job readiness and support more effective employability development in increasingly competitive labour markets.
Indexed as
Identifiers
What OpenQuestion holds
Registered trials
Read under generation 80e0d062 · epoch 390. Bibliography from PubMed, PubMed Central and OpenAlex; grants from NIH RePORTER; trial links from ClinicalTrials.gov; estimates, votes and beliefs from the OpenQuestion graph.