In the current study, we investigated the linkage between career adaptability, academic satisfaction, and intended academic persistence. The psychometric properties of the Career AdaptAbilities Scale (CAAS) in a sample of undergraduate students from Trinidad and Tobago were also examined. The results provided further support for the incremental validity of the CAAS. We also found that career adaptability was significantly and positively related to intended academic persistence and academic satisfaction. Similarly, career adaptability predicted academic satisfaction which in turn predicted sub-dimensions of intended academic persistence. Furthermore, academic satisfaction was found to significantly mediate the relations between career adaptability and intended academic persistence. These results suggest that for undergraduate students, feeling adaptable in one’s career links to an enhanced commitment to remain in their chosen academic field, in part due to feeling more satisfied with their chosen academic domain. Implications and future research directions are discussed.

Introduction

Career adaptability has garnered significant cross-cultural attention in recent years (Rudolph, Lavigne, Katz, & Zacher, 2017). This proliferation in empirical efforts can be largely attributed to the development of the Career Adapt-Abilities Scale (CAAS: Savickas & Porfeli, 2012), a cross-culturally valid and well-established instrument, grounded in the Career Construction Theory (CCT; Savickas, 1997, 2002, 2005). Savickas (1997) defines career adaptability as “the readiness to cope with the predictable tasks of preparing for and participating in the work role and with the unpredictable adjustments prompted by changes in work and working conditions” (p. 254). The research to date supports the importance of possessing the necessary adaptive skills. For example, among undergraduates, career adaptability has been linked to variables such as academic satisfaction (Wilkins et al., 2014), career calling (Praskova, Hood, & Creed, 2014), career exploration (Hirschi, Herrmann, & Keller, 2015), work volition (Duffy, Douglass, & Autin, 2015), and career decision making self-efficacy (Douglass & Duffy, 2015). It follows then that emerging adults entering today’s rapidly changing economic environment need to be equipped with psychosocial resources critical to adjusting to the changes in the world of work. Given the evidence supporting the influence of adaptability on vocational outcomes, it follows then that adaptive skills could aid in overcoming academic demands and challenges thus increasing the likelihood of persistence among college students. No study to date has examined the relation between career adaptability and intended academic persistence. A lack of empirical evidence renders this claim unfounded and represents a gap in our knowledge. Consequently, the current study examined the relations among career adaptability, intended academic persistence, and academic satisfaction in a sample of undergraduate students from Trinidad and Tobago (2016).