Technical education graduate students’ career satisfaction and willingness for skills upgrading: the mediating role of lifelong learning opportunities

Abstract

The call for lifelong learning (LLL) may continue to be fantasized if the individual’s characteristics towards personal and professional development for career satisfaction and intentions for skills upgrading are not taken into consideration. This study, therefore, investigated the relationship between career satisfaction and willingness for vocational skills upgrading via perceived lifelong learning opportunities among postgraduate students of technical education. The correlational survey research design was this study employed. The participants were 97 postgraduate students of technical education programmes in universities in south-south and south-east Nigeria. Questionnaire was used for data collection. It was validated by experts, and it has a reliability coefficient of 0.91 via Cronbach’s alpha. Data analysis was done using bivariate correlation, bias-corrected (BC) bootstrap of 5000 re-sample and Fisher-Z transformation. Results revealed a significant relationship between career satisfaction and willingness for vocational skills upgrading, which was partially mediated by perceived lifelong learning opportunities. Gender and employment status differences were found significant in the relationship between career satisfaction and willingness for skills upgrading.

Keywords: technical education postgraduate students, career satisfaction, intentions for skills upgrading, lifelong learning, demographic characterist