1. Qiuping JIN Dr. Raysen, Cheung APCDA 2016, Taipei
Impact of leaving hometown for university on career development in Mainland China
Qiuping JIN
Dr. Raysen, Cheung
APCDA 2016, Taipei

2. Research background
The immigration experience to other country and their impact on career development- well researched
E.g., Taiwan international students in the US(Shih & Brown, 2000).
Moving within national border
Many university students leave hometown for university in mainland China
Regional diversity within China (e.g., south& north, east* west)
How this experience impact their career development?
Career development a socially embedded process (Blustein & Flum, 1999;Vondracek et al., 1986).

3. Research background Career development
Vocational identity development (Porfeli, 2011)
Exploration- in-depth, in-breadth
Commitment- commitment making, identification with commitment
Reconsideration – self-doubt, flexibility
Career adaptability
a psychosocial construct that denotes an individual's resources for coping with current and anticipated tasks, transitions, traumas in their occupational roles that, to some degree large or small, alter their social integration (Savickas, 1997).

4. Research background Conceptualizing the moving experience
Objective: the city the university in the city of origin?
Subjective: place identity, specifically, city identity, which refers to the degree of identification with and feeling of belonging to the city (where the university attending is located) (Valera & Pol,1994).
sample "I feel that Beijing is part of me"
Moving experience may reduce the social and psychological resources required for vocational identity development and coping with career tasks.
Identification with the city may compensate for the negative impact

5. Research question
How the objective aspect of moving experience impact career development?
How the subjective experience with the region impact career development?
Is there an interaction effect? City identity more important for students that was new to the city?

6. Research method Cross-sectional, Survey
A convenience sample of students in a comprehensive university in Beijing
255 students, 40 of Beijing origin(been living in Beijing before age 18 ), 215 not of Beijing origin
48.2% male
52.5% science & engineering major
About averagely spread in year of study from 1-4

7. Research method Measures alpha Number of items Source
Career adaptability
.95 24
Savicaks & Porfeli, 2011
Commitment_making
.82 5
Porfeli, etc., 2011
Commitment_identification
.87
Flexibility
.81
Doubt
.75
Exploration_breadth
.78
Exploration_depth
Place identity
.90 6
Valera & Pol,1994
Measures

8. Data analysis Descriptive
Significantly higher level of city identity among those of Beijing origin (4.3 vs., 3.2)
To answer the research questions, regression analyses were performed (West, Aiken & Krull, 1996)
IV in each regression
Main effect of place of origin (Beijing coded 1, not Beijing coded 0)
Main effect of city identity
Interaction of place of origin and city identity
DV One career development variable in each regression

9. Results DV IV R Square Origin City identity Interaction Adaptability
-.07
.27**
-.20*
.164**
Commit_making
.19
.21**
-.28*
.056**
Commit_identification
-.30
.12*
.04
.023
Exploration_indepth
-.19
.16**
-.01
.051**
Exploration_breadth
-.18
-.03
.047**
flexibility
-.24
.02
.20
Self-doubt
.03
-.08
.009

10. Discussions
From the interaction effect, identification with the city of university is more important for students not originally from the city in terms its impact on career adaptability and commitment making. Thus for students leaving hometown, identification with the city of university helps their career development.

11. Discussions
Whether students were attending university in their place of origin does not impact their vocational identity development and career adaptability
The advantages of coming to the city that lead the students to make such a decision may counterbalance its negative impact . To control such effects in future study.
The extent of their identification with the city of university positively contributes to their career exploration, commitment and career adaptability.
Identification with the city makes students possibly feel more ready to engage in the career explorative activities in the environment and better prepared with career tasks.
However, the impact is relatively small in magnitude for exploration and commitment, larger for career adaptability.

12. Acculturation Strategies (Berry, 1997)
Assimilation: Adopting host cultural norms while not maintain original culture.
Separation: Maintaining original culture and rejecting host culture
Integration: Maintaining original culture while adopting the cultural norms of the host culture.
Marginalization: Rejecting original culture and host culture.

13. Limitations
Heterogeneity among students not originally from Beijing, some place of origin closer or more similar to the Beijing, obscuring the impact of moving on career development.
Other level of place identity other than the city level, e.g., school, community, neighborhood. Possibly more impact of approximate environment.