The association between academic major identity and career decision-making difficulty among Chinese college students: a sequential indirect association model of psychological capital and career adaptability.

Academic major identity, referring to students' cognitive, affective, behavioral, and fit-based identification with their field of study, may be an important correlate of career decision-making difficulty. Career adaptability refers to psychosocial resources that individuals use to manage career-related tasks, transitions, and uncertainty. Drawing on career construction theory, this cross-sectional study examined a theoretically informed model of associations among academic major identity, psychological capital, career adaptability, and career decision-making difficulty among Chinese college students. Data were collected through an anonymous online survey using Questionnaire Star. Participants were 2,255 first-, second-, and third-year undergraduate students recruited from 20 universities in Sichuan Province, China. Established instruments were used to measure academic major identity, psychological capital, career adaptability, and career decision-making difficulty. Structural equation modeling and bias-corrected bootstrap procedures were used to analyze the data. The results showed that academic major identity was negatively associated with career decision-making difficulty and positively associated with psychological capital and career adaptability. Psychological capital and career adaptability were both negatively associated with career decision-making difficulty, and psychological capital was positively associated with career adaptability. Bootstrap analyses further indicated significant indirect associations between academic major identity and career decision-making difficulty through psychological capital, through career adaptability, and through the sequential pathway of psychological capital and career adaptability. These findings should be interpreted as associations rather than causal effects because of the cross-sectional design. Overall, the study contributes to the literature by integrating major-related identification, general positive psychological resources, and career-specific adaptive resources within a single analytical framework. The Chinese higher education context, characterized by major placement, family expectations, and increasingly diversified post-graduation pathways, makes this integrated model particularly relevant for understanding career decision-making difficulty among undergraduates.