Factors which impede or facilitate widening participation students’ engagement with employability services

Young adults enter higher education in the hope of improving their future job prospects. Therefore, there exists a prevailing belief that maximizing the employability of students is an ethical objective for providers of Higher Education (Kofler, 2021). Furthermore, the incorporation of graduate outcomes into external league tables has positioned employability as a key indicator of teaching quality. As a result, universities have introduced various initiatives aimed at enhancing students' employability. However, it has been noted that students demonstrate reluctance in engaging with the employability support services offered by their institutions (Bradley et al., 2021; Jackson et al., 2024). To investigate this issue, we explore student engagement with employability support in a widening participation context. Data for the project were collected via an online survey of second-year students within the School of Accounting, Finance, and Economics at a modern UK university with a focus on widening participation. In addition, student focus groups were conducted to gain deeper insights. To illuminate our findings, we draw on Simon's (1964) theory of bounded rationality, together with concepts of habitus and behavioural economics. This enables a theoretical contribution by connecting individual cognitive heuristics with the structural constraints which can affect widening participation learners.