From Individual Traits to Situation Generation: A Multi-Layer Embedded Mechanism of Career Adversity Quotient for Students in Technical and Vocational Schools from the Perspective of School-Enterprise Collaboration ()
1. Problem Formulation: The Decontextualized Myth and Transformation Demand of Career AQ Research
Career adversity quotient (AQ) is a core indicator measuring individuals’ coping ability and adaptation level in career setbacks and stressful situations, and has become a hot topic in the interdisciplinary research of vocational education and applied psychology. For a long time, research on career AQ has mostly followed the individual trait research paradigm, based on Stoltz’s CORE model of AQ, regarding career AQ as an innate and relatively stable psychological resource of individuals, focusing on internal psychological variables such as sense of control, attribution style, and emotion regulation, forming the core explanatory logic that “individual psychological resource reserves determine resilience ability” [1].
This research paradigm has certain value in revealing individual differences in career AQ, but has obvious decontextualized limitations: it separates career AQ from specific career fields, ignores the situational dependence of individuals’ adversity coping behaviors, and cannot explain the realistic problem that “the same student shows significantly different resilience performance in campus simulated training and real enterprise posts”. With the in-depth advancement of policies such as the National Implementation Plan for Vocational Education Reform, school-enterprise collaborative education has become the core model of talent training in technical and vocational schools. The career growth of students in technical and vocational schools is no longer limited to a single campus space, but is deeply embedded in multiple situations such as campus training, enterprise internship, and master-apprentice interaction. The formation of their career adversity experience and resilience ability is inevitably deeply influenced by situational structure, social interaction and institutional arrangement.
In fact, the resilience ability of students in technical and vocational schools is not a static psychological trait, but a developmental ability gradually generated and continuously strengthened in the interaction between campus and enterprise dual fields. If we still adhere to the individual trait paradigm and simplify career AQ into individual internal psychological capital, it will not only be difficult to reveal its dynamic generation law, but also fail to respond to the practical needs of resilience cultivation in technical and vocational schools. Therefore, breaking through the limitations of the individual trait paradigm, introducing the perspective of situation embeddedness, realizing the shift of career AQ research from “individual traits” to “situation generation”, and systematically analyzing the multi-layer embedded mechanism of career AQ from the perspective of school-enterprise collaboration have become the key to solving the current research dilemma and docking practical needs.
2. Theoretical Shift: Paradigm Reconstruction from Individual Trait Paradigm to Situation Generation Logic
2.1. Core Logic and Explanatory Limitations of the Individual Trait Paradigm
Under the individual trait paradigm, the core logic of career AQ research is “resource reserves determine resilience level”, and its theoretical basis stems from the integration of the CORE model of AQ and psychological capital theory. As an important indicator measuring individuals’ ability to cope with adversity, the four-dimensional CORE structure of AQ—Control, Ownership, Reach, and Endurance—constitutes the core framework for understanding individuals’ adversity responses [1]. This paradigm holds that career AQ is a stable psychological ability that individuals possess in advance and can be transferred across situations, and its level depends on the reserve of internal psychological resources: the stronger the sense of control, the more obvious the positive attribution tendency, and the better the emotion regulation ability, the higher the career AQ level and the stronger the ability to cope with career adversity.
However, the explanatory limitations of this research paradigm have become increasingly prominent. Studies have shown that the cultivation of AQ for vocational college students needs to be combined with specific career situations, and single psychological training divorced from situations is difficult to achieve ideal effects [2]. A scholar’s research on higher vocational students in Guangxi International Business Vocational College found that the AQ of vocational college students has four problems: student level, teacher level, learning process level and environment level, which reveals the multi-dimensional and situational dependence of AQ problems [2]. Empirical surveys also show that among vocational college students, some students have relatively weak psychological capital foundation due to weak academic foundation and social prejudice against vocational education, showing low self-efficacy and insufficient emotion regulation ability [3].
2.2. Theoretical Support and Adaptability of the Situation Embeddedness Perspective
Situation embeddedness theory originates from new economic sociology, first systematically proposed by Granovetter. Its core view is that individuals’ behavior and ability development have significant structural dependence, and ability is not an isolated individual attribute, but dynamically generated, reconstructed and strengthened in specific social interactions, organizational situations and institutional arrangements. This theory provides important support for solving the decontextualized dilemma of career AQ research, and its multi-layer embedded analysis framework also provides a new perspective for ability research in the field of vocational education.
Introducing the perspective of situation embeddedness into career AQ research is highly compatible with the growth characteristics of students in technical and vocational schools under the vision of school-enterprise collaboration. A variety of theoretical perspectives have been developed in the research of psychological resilience. Some scholars point out that resilience is a dynamic and multi-dimensional construct, which develops over time when individuals face adversity and difficult experiences in specific situations [4]. Ungar’s social-ecological view emphasizes that the interaction between individual characteristics and environmental protection factors is the key to helping individuals alleviate specific situational pressures and challenges [4]. This view provides important theoretical support for understanding the situational generation nature of career AQ.
In the field of vocational education, the integration of industry and education and school-enterprise cooperation are its main characteristics. The greatest enlightenment brought by the vigorous development of school-enterprise cooperation to mental health education is to adjust measures to local conditions, align with enterprise needs and keep pace with social development [5]. Based on the collaborative education theory, the reform of mental health education in higher vocational colleges should start from both macro and micro levels, establish the concept of holistic education and collaborative education mechanism, integrate corporate culture into mental health education, and strengthen the cultivation of students’ professional psychological quality [5].
2.3. Core Connotation of Paradigm Shift: The Situational Generation Nature of Career AQ
The shift from the individual trait paradigm to the situation generation paradigm is to redefine the essence of career AQ: career AQ is not a stable psychological trait possessed by individuals, but a developmental ability dynamically generated and continuously developed in multiple situational interactions. Its core characteristics are reflected in three aspects:
First, situational dependence. The generation and development of career AQ depend on specific career situations, and the adversity characteristics and interaction modes in different situations will directly affect the formation of resilience ability. Scholars’ research on students’ mental health under the background of school-enterprise cooperation found that school-enterprise cooperation enables students to directly experience the production site closest to reality, but the real production pressure of enterprises may also have an impact on students’ psychology, leading to adverse psychological reactions such as anxiety, depression, inferiority and avoidance [6]. This finding reveals the profound shaping effect of career situations on students’ psychological state.
Second, interactive generativity. Career AQ is the product of the interaction between individuals and situations, individuals and others, rather than the result of isolated individual development. Studies have shown that in the school-enterprise cooperation environment, students need to obtain support from vocational role adaptation, academic pressure regulation, interpersonal communication and other aspects, and mental health education relying on the resources and practice platforms jointly built by schools and enterprises can effectively improve students’ psychological quality [5].
Third, dynamic development. The level of career AQ will be continuously optimized with the deepening of situational interaction and the improvement of individual cognition, and it is not immutable. Through targeted situational training and support, the resilience ability of students in technical and vocational schools can be significantly improved.
To further clarify the conceptual boundary of career AQ, it is essential to distinguish it from related but distinct constructs. Psychological capital is a broad, positive psychological state of development (including self-efficacy, hope, optimism, and resilience) that serves as an internal resource. Career AQ, as we conceptualize it, is the application and manifestation of such resources when facing specific career-related adversities. General resilience is the capacity to bounce back from any form of adversity, while career AQ is domain-specific, focusing on the professional context. Finally, career adaptability refers to an individual's readiness and resources for coping with current and anticipated tasks, transitions, and traumas in their occupational roles, which is a broader, future-oriented construct, whereas career AQ is more focused on the immediate response to and recovery from a setback.
3. Structural Tensions in the Technical Education Field: Realistic Motivation for the Situational Generation of Career AQ
From the perspective of school-enterprise collaboration, the career growth of students in technical and vocational schools is embedded in multiple interrelated and conflicting structures. The tensions formed between these structures are not negative obstacles, but the core motivation driving the situational generation of career AQ—it is in the process of coping with tensions and resolving conflicts that students’ resilience potential is activated, and their resilience ability is gradually shaped and strengthened. These three dimensions are considered primary because they represent the fundamental levels at which a student experiences the school-enterprise collaboration: the individual psychological level, the contextual field level, and the socio-normative level. This structural tension is mainly reflected at three levels.
First, psychological resource tension. Some students in technical and vocational schools have relatively weak psychological capital foundation due to weak academic foundation and social prejudice against technical education, showing low self-efficacy, insufficient emotion regulation ability, negative bias in adversity cognition, and prone to negative emotions such as withdrawal and anxiety in the face of career setbacks [3]. Surveys show that some vocational school students need to improve their learning habits, but on the other hand, they have strong hands-on ability and need guidance [7]. However, enterprise posts put clear and high requirements on employees’ stability, execution and stress resistance, emphasizing the efficient completion of work tasks and active response to unexpected problems at work. The gap between individual psychological resources and post requirements constitutes the internal tension for the generation of career AQ and becomes the primary incentive to activate students’ resilience potential.
Second, field transformation tension. The campus environment is education-oriented, with supportive, inclusive and fault-tolerant characteristics. Its core goal is to promote students’ skill learning and personality growth, it is tolerant of students’ training mistakes and skill bottlenecks, and pays attention to process evaluation and guidance. The enterprise environment is production performance-oriented, emphasizing efficiency, standards and responsibilities, puts strict requirements on employees’ work results and behavioral performance, has limited fault tolerance, and pays attention to result evaluation and accountability [6]. Some studies point out that the impact of real enterprise production pressure on students’ psychology may lead to adverse psychological reactions, affecting students’ learning effect and physical and mental health, and even causing some extreme situations [6]. In the process of transformation from campus simulated training to real enterprise posts, students in technical and vocational schools need to quickly adapt to the differences in field atmosphere and evaluation standards, and the adaptive pressure brought by this field transformation constitutes the external tension for the generation of career AQ.
Third, identity role tension. In the scenario of school-enterprise collaborative education, students undertake the dual identities of “student” and “quasi-professional” at the same time, and there are obvious differences in the role expectations and behavioral norms of the two identities: as a “student”, the core task is to learn skills and accept guidance, the core evaluation standard is learning effect and skill improvement, and they can enjoy campus support and tolerance; as a “quasi-professional”, they need to undertake corresponding post responsibilities, abide by enterprise rules and regulations, the core evaluation standard is work performance and professional literacy, and they need to have a strong sense of responsibility and execution. The duality of identity and role can easily lead to role cognitive confusion and role conflict for students, and then produce psychological pressure. Studies have shown that order-based training not only makes the training of vocational schools more targeted, but also makes students less confused and more active in learning [7], which suggests that the institutional arrangement of school-enterprise collaboration can alleviate identity role tension to a certain extent.
4. Multi-layer Embedded Mechanism: Generation Logic of Career AQ for Students in Technical and Vocational Schools from the Perspective of School-Enterprise Collaboration
Based on the perspective of situation generation, the generation of career AQ for students in technical and vocational schools from the perspective of school-enterprise collaboration is not the result of a single mechanism, but a multi-layer circular generation system. Its core logic is: based on situation embeddedness, taking psychological activation as the starting point, relational embeddedness as the intermediary, and institutional embeddedness as the guarantee, the three mechanisms are interrelated, progressive and synergistic, and jointly promote the dynamic generation and continuous strengthening of career AQ.
4.1. Psychological Activation Mechanism: The Internal Starting Point of Career AQ Generation
The psychological activation mechanism is the logical starting point and internal foundation of career AQ generation. Its core function is to activate individuals’ resilience potential through behavioral participation and build an internal dynamic structure facing career adversity. Different from the logic of “AQ determines behavior” in the individual trait paradigm, from the perspective of situation generation, behavioral participation is not the result of resilience ability, but the trigger condition for the generation of resilience ability—individuals obtain real adversity experience and successful feedback through active participation in skill training, post practice, group activities and other behaviors in school-enterprise collaboration, so as to achieve emotional improvement, cognitive reconstruction and self-efficacy improvement, and finally activate resilience potential.
Some studies point out that through the joint construction of “order classes” by schools and enterprises, classroom knowledge is seamlessly connected with post practice, and students obtain skill breakthroughs and successful experiences in real projects [8]. This successful experience can effectively break the negative emotional cycle, alleviate negative emotions such as anxiety and withdrawal, and promote the positive improvement of emotional state; at the same time, successful experience can reconstruct individuals’ adversity cognition, promote the transformation from negative attribution to positive attribution, and then enhance self-efficacy. The practical case of Jiangxi Business Advanced Technical School shows that students participating in the campus e-commerce industry-education integration project not only achieve economic independence, but also gain family recognition, forming a virtuous cycle of “skill learning-successful experience-self-efficacy improvement” [9].
4.2. Relational Embeddedness Mechanism: Meaning Amplification of Career AQ Generation
The psychological activation mechanism constructs the internal foundation for career AQ generation, but the improvement of individuals’ adversity experience and resilience ability cannot be separated from the support of group interaction. As an intermediary connecting individual psychology and external situations, the core function of the relational embeddedness mechanism is to provide a social space for meaning reconstruction of career adversity experience, amplify the generation effect of career AQ through group interaction, and further promote the development of individual resilience ability.
Studies have shown that in the cultivation of teachers’ resilience, team cohesion and colleague support are reliable predictors of psychological resilience, and individuals with high resilience show higher organizational commitment and well-being [4]. This finding has important enlightenment for understanding the development of resilience ability of students in technical and vocational schools. In the process of group interaction, individuals’ adversity experience is no longer regarded as an isolated personal failure, but is reinterpreted as a normal experience and necessary opportunity in the process of career growth through peer sharing and master guidance—this meaning reconstruction can effectively reduce individuals’ frustration and loneliness, and enhance their courage and perseverance in the face of adversity.
The practical case of Chengdu Industrial Vocational and Technical College shows that by building a “positive psychology +” empowerment system for cultivating lean manufacturing talents, jointly building the first vocational college positive psychology education research center in Western China with Tsinghua University, developing a “positive learning psychology model for vocational colleges”, and providing teachers with precise guidance tools of “observation-measurement-intervention”, the average score of students’ positive emotional activity increased by 1.46 and the average score of negative emotions decreased by 0.87 in the past two years [9]. This case fully proves the effectiveness of relational embeddedness and positive psychological intervention.
4.3. Institutional Embeddedness Mechanism: Structural Reinforcement of Career AQ Generation
The psychological activation mechanism and relational embeddedness mechanism promote the initial generation of career AQ, but to achieve the continuous strengthening and stable development of career AQ, institutional guarantee is also needed. The essence of the institutional embeddedness mechanism is to transform individuals’ adversity experience and resilience behavior into accumulable and strengthenable learning resources through the institutional arrangement of school-enterprise collaboration, and realize the structural reinforcement of career AQ through continuous evaluation and feedback.
The practice of Changsha Social Work College provides a systematic example. The college has built a “four-dimensional coupling + four-in-one” vocational psychology cultivation system, broken the school-enterprise resource barrier through the four-dimensional coupling of “co-construction-co-research-co-training-sharing”, formulated vocational psychological literacy standards covering 19 major professional categories, and formed 76 typical vocational psychological cases [10]. Students majoring in software systematically improve their learning ability, professional stress resistance and problem-solving ability through the three-step progression of “knowledge learning-professional internship-real project development”, and the excellent and good rate of career adaptability evaluation of students participating in the project reaches 99.3% [10]. This case fully demonstrates the systematic value of the institutional embeddedness mechanism.
At the level of institutional guarantee, some studies propose to build a multi-governance mechanism to promote the implementation of collaborative education system; improve the resource guarantee and evaluation mechanism to consolidate the operation foundation of collaborative education; build an achievement sharing mechanism to promote collaborative education from pilot to system [10]. These institutional designs provide a structured support framework for the situational generation of career AQ.
In addition, the exploration of the “three-dimensional and four-stage” psychological education model in vocational colleges also provides an important reference. This model takes “curriculum, practice and culture” as the three-dimensional education carriers, and takes “enrollment adaptation, major learning, internship training and employment transformation” as the four-stage progressive mechanism, focusing on building a “full-cycle, scenario-based, industry-education integrated” psychological education system [3]. At the practical level, by building a “dual psychological training base”, constructing an on-campus vocational role experience center, setting up diversified simulated work scenarios, equipped with emotion recognition cameras and intelligent feedback systems, real-time monitoring of students’ pressure values in task processing and generating intervention suggestions; externally connecting cooperative enterprises to jointly build an “enterprise mental health service station” to provide students with customized services such as pre-employment psychological adjustment and post pressure management [3]. These practical explorations provide rich operational paths for the institutional embeddedness mechanism.
5. Situation-Embedded Resilience Cultivation Model: The Circular Path of “Embeddedness-Activation-Reinforcement”
Based on the above analysis of the structural tension of the technical education field and the multi-layer embedded mechanism, this paper constructs a situation-embedded resilience cultivation model for students in technical and vocational schools from the perspective of school-enterprise collaboration. The model takes the three-stage cycle of “embeddedness-activation-reinforcement” as the core logic, integrates the three mechanisms of psychological activation, relational embeddedness and institutional embeddedness, and forms a complete system for the dynamic generation of career AQ.
The first stage is situation embeddedness, which is the realistic starting point of career AQ generation. The “campus-enterprise” dual fields constructed by school-enterprise collaboration provide students with multiple embedded situations such as campus training, enterprise posts and master-apprentice interaction. These situations are not only the field carriers for career AQ generation, but also provide a power source for career AQ generation through the triple structural tensions of psychological resources, field transformation and identity roles. Students obtain real adversity experience through in-depth participation in these situations, completing the preliminary preparation for career AQ generation. Studies have shown that school-enterprise cooperation allows students to directly experience the production site closest to reality, enabling them to master professional skills more efficiently and promote their all-round development [6]. At the same time, the impact of enterprise production pressure on students’ psychology also needs to be guided and transformed through situation embeddedness [6].
The second stage is psychological activation, which is the core link of career AQ generation. On the basis of situation embeddedness, students trigger the psychological activation mechanism through active participation in skill training, post practice and other behaviors, realize the cycle of “behavioral participation-emotional improvement-cognitive reconstruction-self-efficacy improvement”, activate their own resilience potential, and build an internal dynamic structure facing career adversity. The practice of Chengdu Industrial Vocational and Technical College shows that through systematic positive psychological intervention, students’ positive emotional activity is significantly improved and negative emotions are significantly reduced [9]. The core of this stage is to promote individuals to change from “passive coping” to “active adaptation”, and let students gradually build confidence and ability to cope with adversity in practice.
The third stage is structural reinforcement, which is the guarantee link for the stable development of career AQ. The initial resilience ability generated by psychological activation realizes meaning amplification through the relational embeddedness mechanism, and completes the meaning reconstruction of adversity experience with the help of group interaction and social support, further improving resilience willingness and ability. Studies have shown that group cohesion and colleague support are reliable predictors of psychological resilience [4]. At the same time, through the institutional embeddedness mechanism, relying on the institutional arrangement and evaluation feedback of school-enterprise collaboration, the confirmation and solidification of resilience ability are realized. The “four-dimensional coupling” system of Changsha Social Work College provides a complete example for this mechanism, integrating vocational psychology cultivation into the whole process of talent training through the institutional design of co-construction-co-research-co-training-sharing [11].
The three stages of “embeddedness-activation-reinforcement” are not linearly progressive, but form a dynamic circular system. To clarify this dynamic, we propose the following theoretical propositions:
Proposition 1: The structural tensions inherent in the situation embeddedness stage (psychological, field, and identity) are necessary conditions that trigger the need for psychological activation.
Proposition 2: Successful navigation of the psychological activation stage, particularly through mastery experiences, enhances an individual's engagement with relational networks, thereby activating the relational embeddedness mechanism.
Proposition 3: The meaning reconstruction achieved through relational embeddedness positively moderates the impact of institutional feedback, such that individuals are more likely to internalize external evaluations as learning resources, leading to structural reinforcement and deeper re-embedding in future situations.
Thus, situation embeddedness continuously provides fields and tensions for career AQ generation, psychological activation continuously enhances individuals’ internal resilience resources, relational embeddedness and institutional embeddedness jointly realize the amplification and reinforcement of resilience ability, and the strengthened resilience ability will promote individuals to embed into career situations more deeply, forming a continuous cycle of “situation embeddedness-psychological activation-structural reinforcement-deep embeddedness”, and finally realizing the dynamic generation and sustainable development of career AQ.
6. Research Prospect and Conclusion
6.1. Limitations and Research Prospect
This paper, based on the perspective of situation embeddedness, completes the paradigm shift of career AQ research from individual traits to situation generation, and constructs a multi-layer embedded mechanism and cultivation model of career AQ from the perspective of school-enterprise collaboration. However, the proposed model has certain limitations. Its applicability may vary across different contexts. For instance, the intensity and nature of structural tensions likely differ between majors (e.g., manufacturing vs. service industries), across academic stages (e.g., secondary vs. higher vocational education), and across different forms of school-enterprise collaboration (e.g., order-based classes vs. less structured internship programs). Future research should empirically test and refine the model for these varied contexts. Combined with the practical needs of resilience cultivation in technical and vocational schools, the following future research directions are proposed:
First, carry out empirical research to test the theoretical model. Follow-up research can adopt questionnaire survey, follow-up research, case analysis and other methods, take students trained by school-enterprise collaboration in technical and vocational schools as research objects, collect relevant data, and verify the effectiveness of the “embeddedness-activation-reinforcement” circular model and the three embedded mechanisms. Some scholars have developed a teaching model based on Rogers’ theory, and students’ AQ has been significantly improved after intervention [2], providing a methodological reference for subsequent empirical research.
Second, develop career AQ assessment tools suitable for technical and vocational schools. Most existing career AQ scales are suitable for students in ordinary higher education or enterprise employees, and there is a lack of localized assessment tools for the psychological characteristics and career situations of students in technical and vocational schools. Some studies have used the Rasch model to verify the AQ measurement tool for technical students and screened out 36 valid items [12], providing a technical path for tool development.
Third, explore the resilience cultivation path under the digital support environment. With the wide application of digital technology in vocational education, follow-up research can rely on big data, artificial intelligence and other technologies to build a digital career AQ monitoring and cultivation platform. Some scholars point out that the reconstruction of the industry-education integrated collaborative education model for postgraduate education under digital empowerment needs to build a “psychology + N” curriculum system, industry-education integration platform, school-enterprise co-education teacher mechanism, achievement transformation ecology and a process-oriented multi-dimensional evaluation system [10]. The exploration of the “three-dimensional and four-stage” psychological education model in vocational colleges also emphasizes the construction value of the intelligent psychological service big data platform [3].
Fourth, deepen the differential cultivation research of different majors and different academic stages. The career situations and adversity characteristics of different majors (such as mechanical manufacturing, modern services, etc.) in technical and vocational schools are different, and the psychological resources and identity roles of students in different academic stages (such as secondary vocational, higher vocational and technical schools) are also different. Follow-up research should focus on this difference, explore career AQ cultivation paths suitable for students of different majors and academic stages, avoid a one-size-fits-all approach, and improve the pertinence of practical cultivation.
6.2. Conclusions
On the basis of reflecting on the decontextualized dilemma of career AQ research, this paper introduces the perspective of situation embeddedness, realizes the theoretical shift of career AQ research from the “individual trait paradigm” to the “situation generation paradigm”, and clearly proposes that career AQ is a developmental ability generated in the interaction of multiple structures. By analyzing the triple structural tensions of psychological resources, field transformation and identity roles in the technical education field, this paper systematically explains the synergistic logic of the three mechanisms of psychological activation, relational embeddedness and institutional embeddedness, constructs a three-stage circular cultivation model of “embeddedness-activation-reinforcement”, and reveals the multi-layer generation path of career AQ from the perspective of school-enterprise collaboration.
The research value of this paper lies in not only breaking through the limitations of the traditional individual-centered paradigm, enriching the theoretical system of career AQ and collaborative education in technical education, but also constructing a situation-embedded resilience cultivation model with practical guidance, providing an integrated framework and feasible path for technical and vocational schools to solve the dilemma of resilience cultivation and deepen the practice of school-enterprise collaborative psychological education. In the future, with the advancement of empirical research and the improvement of the theoretical system, career AQ research from the perspective of situation embeddedness will further promote the connotation development of technical education, help the comprehensive training of high-quality technical and skilled talents, and provide important support for the improvement of talent training quality in technical and vocational schools under the background of industry-education integration.
Funding
This work was supported by the Zhejiang Provincial Chinese Vocational Education Research Project (grant number: ZJCV2025D15) and the Taizhou Technician College Commissioned Research Project (grant number: 2025WTYJ21) to Feng Manni.