Keywords
curriculum–job alignment
career commitment
vocational education
professional identity
New Energy Vehicles
Abstract
Vocational curriculum reform is frequently evaluated through formal standards, graduate employment, or employer satisfaction, yet these indicators do not fully explain how learners interpret training as a reason to remain in an occupation. This qualitative study develops an educational mechanism linking curriculum–job alignment, learning experience, and career commitment in Chinese higher vocational New Energy Vehicle (NEV) programs. Twenty-nine participants were theoretically sampled from four positions along the training-to-work pathway: 10 enterprise stakeholders, eight vocational teachers, seven recent graduates, and four current students. Semi-structured interviews elicited concrete accounts of curriculum relevance, teaching, equipment, assessment, workplace exposure, entry readiness, and decisions to stay in or leave NEV technical work. Constant comparison and grounded-theory coding produced 34 initial categories and 13 reported axial categories, which were integrated into four blocks: curriculum–job alignment, learning experience, career commitment, and contextual interaction. The core process is a staged mechanism. Alignment first supplies structural credibility by showing that school tasks correspond to current tools, safety procedures, diagnostic logic, and workplace accountability. Learning experience then internalizes that credibility through teacher boundary-spanning, authentic resources, performance-based assessment, learner activation, and goal clarity. Career commitment is expressed as willingness to stay, professional involvement, and within-field progression planning. Workplace conditions influence whether dissatisfaction produces employer switching or occupational exit. The findings reposition career commitment as an educationally developable outcome rather than a fixed learner disposition. A practical implication is that curriculum updating, pedagogy, assessment, career guidance, and workplace exposure must be governed as one continuous system.
Keywords: grounded theory; curriculum–job alignment; career commitment; vocational education; professional identity; New Energy Vehicles
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