Understanding the Impacts of Chinese Undergraduate Tourism Students’ Professional Identity on Learning Engagement

Fenglong Yu,Qian Chen,Bing Hou

doi:10.3390/su132313379

Abstract

Under the background of higher education reform, undergraduate tourism students’ professional identity may play an important role in affecting students’ learning engagement and the sustainable development of tourism higher education. Data were collected from 551 Chinese undergraduate tourism students to investigate the potential relationships between professional identity and learning engagement. Based on the theory of social identity, professional identity is perceived as a progressive, dynamic process including professional cognition, professional appraisal, and professional emotion. The data were analyzed using structural equation modeling (SEM), and the findings confirmed that professional identity was in positive correlation with employee engagement. Furthermore, the results showed that professional cognition has positive influences on professional appraisal, professional emotion, and learning engagement, and professional appraisal has positive influences on professional emotion and learning engagement. In addition, the mediating effects of professional appraisal and professional emotion between professional cognition and learning engagement were analyzed, respectively. This study contributes to the understanding of the impacts of tourism students’ professional identity on learning engagement. Both theoretical and practical implications are provided.

Highlights

Adjusted admission means that the examinee is not accepted by their chosen universities in the admission, and the examinee is subject to the adjustment of the admissions department and is admitted by other universities that have not completed the enrollment plan
structural equation modeling (SEM) was used to evaluate the relationships among professional cognition, professional appraisal, professional emotion and learning engagement
The results of this study are useful for improving the competitiveness of undergraduate tourism students, and accelerating the sustainable development of tourism higher education

Summary

Introduction

In accordance with the development of the tourism industry all over the world, the number of tourism higher education institutions, teachers, and students is increasing rapidly [1]. The prosperity of the Chinese tourism industry has accelerated the development of tourism education since the reform and opening-up policy in 1978, and the number of tourism universities in China has ranked among the top in the world. Problems are detected that tourism degrees of some key universities have shrunk, students’ professional identity has been declining, and the turnover rate of tourism employees is high [2,3]. The relatively low professional identity of tourism university students is one of the important reasons [6,7]

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Conclusion