Understanding the Impacts of Chinese Undergraduate Tourism Students’ Professional Identity on Learning Engagement

Fenglong Yu, Qian Chen and Bing Hou
Additional contact information
Fenglong Yu: School of Tourism and Cuisine, Yangzhou University, Yangzhou 225127, China
Qian Chen: School of Tourism and Cuisine, Yangzhou University, Yangzhou 225127, China
Bing Hou: School of Tourism and Cuisine, Yangzhou University, Yangzhou 225127, China

Sustainability, 2021, vol. 13, issue 23, 1-16

Abstract: Under the background of higher education reform, undergraduate tourism students’ professional identity may play an important role in affecting students’ learning engagement and the sustainable development of tourism higher education. Data were collected from 551 Chinese undergraduate tourism students to investigate the potential relationships between professional identity and learning engagement. Based on the theory of social identity, professional identity is perceived as a progressive, dynamic process including professional cognition, professional appraisal, and professional emotion. The data were analyzed using structural equation modeling (SEM), and the findings confirmed that professional identity was in positive correlation with employee engagement. Furthermore, the results showed that professional cognition has positive influences on professional appraisal, professional emotion, and learning engagement, and professional appraisal has positive influences on professional emotion and learning engagement. In addition, the mediating effects of professional appraisal and professional emotion between professional cognition and learning engagement were analyzed, respectively. This study contributes to the understanding of the impacts of tourism students’ professional identity on learning engagement. Both theoretical and practical implications are provided.

Keywords: professional identity; learning engagement; undergraduate; tourism higher education; China (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: O13 Q Q0 Q2 Q3 Q5 Q56 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2021
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
https://www.mdpi.com/2071-1050/13/23/13379/pdf (application/pdf)
https://www.mdpi.com/2071-1050/13/23/13379/ (text/html)

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:gam:jsusta:v:13:y:2021:i:23:p:13379-:d:694008

Access Statistics for this article

Sustainability is currently edited by Ms. Alexandra Wu

More articles in Sustainability from MDPI
Bibliographic data for series maintained by MDPI Indexing Manager ().