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The Moderating Role of Optimism in the Relationship Between Academic Self-Efficacy and Unemployment Anxiety: An Explainable AI Approach

Year: 2026
Type: article
Study design: Observational Study
Abstract: The growing number of university graduates and limited employment opportunities increase students’ concerns about future employment. This study examined the relationship between academic self-efficacy and the pessimism and lack of self-confidence dimension of unemployment anxiety and tested whether optimism moderated this relationship. The sample consisted of 447 students from Isparta University of Applied Sciences selected through convenience sampling. Descriptive statistics, exploratory and confirmatory factor analyses, and path analysis were used to test the moderation model. The results showed that academic self-efficacy did not have a statistically significant direct association with pessimism and lack of self-confidence, whereas optimism showed a strong negative association. The interaction between academic self-efficacy and optimism was significant. Simple slope analysis indicated that academic self-efficacy was associated with lower pessimism and lack of self-confidence at higher levels of optimism, whereas this association was not statistically significant at lower levels of optimism. To complement the inferential analyses, explainable artificial intelligence techniques, including permutation importance, SHAP, and partial dependence analysis, were used to examine predictive patterns. The XAI findings highlighted the prominence of optimism-related features and more heterogeneous predictive contributions of academic self-efficacy. Overall, the findings suggest that the relationship between academic self-efficacy and employment-related pessimism and lack of self-confidence is conditional on students’ level of optimism.
DOI: 10.33712/mana.2033880
Language: Turkish
Field: Psychology
Open Access status: diamond
OpenAlex ID: W7223467937
FWCI:
Cites: 44
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Related to: 10