{"status":"ok","message-type":"work","message-version":"1.0.0","message":{"indexed":{"date-parts":[[2026,9,16]],"date-time":"2026-09-16T06:04:55Z","timestamp":1789538695193,"version":"build-2803163510"},"reference-count":29,"publisher":"Frontiers Media SA","license":[{"start":{"date-parts":[[2026,9,16]],"date-time":"2026-09-16T00:00:00Z","timestamp":1789516800000},"content-version":"vor","delay-in-days":0,"URL":"https:\/\/creativecommons.org\/licenses\/by\/4.0\/"}],"content-domain":{"domain":["frontiersin.org"],"crossmark-restriction":true},"short-container-title":["Front. Psychol."],"abstract":"\n Background<\/jats:title>\n Employability competencies in higher education reflect both academic indicators and experiential learning. This study examines whether a behavioral internship-engagement proxy provides a predictive indirect pathway between an academic self-concept proxy and employability outcomes using the Hierarchical Attention Mediated Employability Network (HAMEN). Because the source data are cross-sectional and observational, mediation is interpreted strictly as an associational predictive decomposition rather than a causal mechanism.<\/jats:p>\n <\/jats:sec>\n \n Methods<\/jats:title>\n \n A secondary analysis was conducted on a publicly available Kaggle dataset containing 1,200 undergraduate records of unspecified institutional and national origin. Academic Self-Concept Proxy (ASC-P) was constructed from grade point average, core-subject score, and academic consistency, whereas Behavioral Internship Engagement Proxy (IE-P) was constructed from internship and learning-exposure indicators. Data were divided into training, validation, and test sets (70%\/15%\/15%); preprocessing was fitted only on the training set, and HAMEN hyperparameters were selected using five-fold cross-validation. Performance was assessed using R\n 2<\/jats:sup>\n , RMSE, MAE, bootstrap confidence intervals, and prespecified hypothesis tests.\n <\/jats:p>\n <\/jats:sec>\n \n Results<\/jats:title>\n \n HAMEN achieved\n R<\/jats:italic>\n 2<\/jats:sup>\n = 0.89, RMSE = 3.84, and MAE = 2.97, exceeding Linear Regression (\n R<\/jats:italic>\n 2<\/jats:sup>\n = 0.71) and Structural Equation Modeling (\n R<\/jats:italic>\n 2<\/jats:sup>\n = 0.78). The model-based indirect predictive component associated with ASC-P through IE-P was 0.61 (68% of the total component of 0.90; 95% CI [0.55, 0.67]; Holm-adjusted\n p<\/jats:italic>\n &lt; 0.001), whereas the direct predictive component was 0.29 (32%; Holm-adjusted\n p<\/jats:italic>\n &lt; 0.001).\n <\/jats:p>\n <\/jats:sec>\n \n Conclusion<\/jats:title>\n HAMEN improved employability-score prediction and assigned the largest engagement attention weights to internship duration and project experience. The results indicate predictive associations only; they do not establish that academic self-beliefs or internship engagement causally produce employability outcomes because the constructs are proxy measures and the dataset provides no temporal ordering.<\/jats:p>\n <\/jats:sec>","DOI":"10.3389\/fpsyg.2026.1901668","type":"journal-article","created":{"date-parts":[[2026,9,16]],"date-time":"2026-09-16T05:32:32Z","timestamp":1789536752000},"update-policy":"https:\/\/doi.org\/10.3389\/crossmark-policy","source":"Crossref","is-referenced-by-count":0,"title":["Internship engagement as a predictive pathway between an academic self-concept proxy and employability outcomes: evidence from a public undergraduate employability dataset"],"prefix":"10.3389","volume":"17","author":[{"given":"Xiaoyu","family":"Zhong","sequence":"first","affiliation":[{"name":"School of Education, Shanghai Normal University","place":["Shanghai, China"]}],"role":[{"vocabulary":"crossref","role":"author"}]},{"given":"Kai","family":"An","sequence":"additional","affiliation":[{"name":"School of Education, Hainan Normal University","place":["Haikou, China"]}],"role":[{"vocabulary":"crossref","role":"author"}]},{"given":"Xin","family":"Zhao","sequence":"additional","affiliation":[{"name":"School of Education, Hainan Normal University","place":["Haikou, China"]}],"role":[{"vocabulary":"crossref","role":"author"}]}],"member":"1965","published-online":{"date-parts":[[2026,9,16]]},"reference":[{"key":"B1","author":"Asmawi","year":"2022"},{"key":"B2","doi-asserted-by":"publisher","first-page":"363","DOI":"10.6007\/IJARPED\/v9-i2\/7392","article-title":"Application of planned behavior theory on post-study career intention: The influence of internship experience in Malaysia.","volume":"9","author":"Aun","year":"2020","journal-title":"Int. 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