Students anxiety and recruitment during Covid-19 pandemic: role of university, specialization and employment expectation

Abstract

The problem and the aim of the study. Most undergraduate students at last year of university have anxiety to seek for the future job. Looking for job and moving to new chapter of their life is often accompanied by anxiousness and generates psychological stress. The purpose of this paper is to indicate the role of university, specialization and employment expectation in decreasing the students’ anxiousness. Research methods. The main method of this research is quantitative approach by using surveys. Data were collected by surveying of 400 students at the last year of university distributed under three categories: medical science, natural science and social studies in Yogyakarta city, Indonesia. Purposive sampling was used to select students based on their specialization of study. Regression path analysis was employed to examine the role of university, specialization and possibility of employment on decreasing the students’ anxiety in finding suitable job. Results. The Results indicate that university has no direct role in helping students get job but has indirect impact on shaping students’ knowledge, skills and self-confidence to prepare them for future job and this leads to negative and significant impact on students’ anxiousness with (β = -.138 and -.260; p < 0,01) respectively. Specialization has negative and significant impact (β = -.207, -.198; p < 0,01) for medical and natural science students and low negative and significant (β = -.018; p < 0,01) for social science students on their anxiety. Finally, employment expectation for most of the students was fair and has positive impact on their anxiety (β = .012, .090 and .124; p < 0,05) respectively. Conclusion. This research revealed the increasing impact of Covid-19 pandemic to the students’ anxiety due to continuous influence of the virus during the 2020. Theoretical, social and practical implications have been discussed as part of this research as well.