Artificial Intelligence Self-Efficacy and Work Readiness among Final-Year University Students: Implications for Sustainable Workforce Development

The rapid integration of artificial intelligence (AI) into higher education and professional environments has increased the importance of understanding psychological factors associated with graduates' readiness for employment. This study examined the association between Artificial Intelligence Self-Efficacy (AISE) and Work Readiness among final-year students at Universitas Indonesia and explored its implications for sustainable workforce development. A quantitative cross-sectional correlational design was employ…

By the Truvace deskOctober 21, 20262 min read1 sourcePeer-reviewedTRV-2026-2068· cite & verify

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In brief

A cross-sectional study of 115 final-year students at Universitas Indonesia measured how confident they were in using artificial intelligence and how ready they felt to enter employment. Students with stronger AI self-efficacy tended to report higher work readiness, a moderately strong positive correlation.

The finding suggests universities preparing graduates for AI-integrated workplaces may benefit from building AI confidence alongside other skills. Because the design is correlational and the sample small and purposively chosen, the result does not show that raising AI confidence would cause better readiness, and most of the variation in readiness remains unexplained.

Main points

The study used a quantitative cross-sectional correlational design with 115 purposively sampled final-year students.
Data came from the Artificial Intelligence Self-Efficacy Scale and the Work Readiness Scale.
Analysis used descriptive statistics, Pearson correlation, and simple linear regression.
Most participants showed high AI self-efficacy, yet work readiness was mostly moderate.
The authors describe work readiness as multidimensional, so AI confidence alone does not explain it.

The gain

Among 115 final-year Universitas Indonesia students, higher AI self-efficacy was associated with higher work readiness, explaining about a third of the variance.

The rundown

The researchers surveyed final-year students at Universitas Indonesia using two validated-style scales, one for AI self-efficacy and one for work readiness, and tested their relationship with correlation and simple regression.

The correlation was r = .580 (p < .001), and AI self-efficacy accounted for 33.6% of the variance in work readiness. That leaves roughly two thirds of the variance attributable to other factors.

A notable pattern was the mismatch between levels: most students had high AI self-efficacy while work readiness was predominantly moderate. The authors read this as evidence that confidence in using AI is not enough on its own, and they draw implications for how higher education institutions prepare graduates for AI-integrated workplaces.