College Students' Professional Competence under the Strategy of Building a Strong Education Nation:Origin of the Problem, Theoretical Construction,and Hierarchical Analysis ———Based on the Method of Conceptual Structure Analysis
The national strategy to build a strong education system and the goal of achieving high-quality and full employment place strategic demands on talent cultivation in higher education. The current labor market is characterized by the simultaneous existence of “difficult employment” for university graduates and “difficult recruitment” for enterprises, a phenomenon rooted in a systemic mismatch between talent supply and demand. Professional competence among university students, as the core competency bridging higher education and the labor market, constitutes the key to resolving this contradiction and realizing an “optimal supply-demand alignment. ” Employing the conceptual structure analysis method, this study systematically reviews and compares relevant Chinese and Western theoretical frameworks to construct a general theoretical model of university students' professional competence. This model comprises three hierarchical levels: “essential, ” “dimensional, ” and “indicative. ” At the essential level, it reveals a dual-core driving mechanism composed of “absolute professional competence” and “relative professional competence. ” At the dimensional level, it delineates five mutually constitutive dimensions, each with observable indicators: professional knowledge and skills, professional ethics, general social competencies, innovation and lifelong learning capabilities, and social and self-cognitive abilities.