Against the backdrop of China’s ongoing economic structural transformation and the persistently large scale of higher education graduates, postgraduate entrance examination participation among university students has gradually shifted from a rational pathway of educational advancement to a highly concentrated and exclusionary form of obsessive postgraduate entrance examination intention within certain groups. This phenomenon is particularly pronounced in Shandong Province, where employment competition is especially intense. This study focuses on undergraduate students and final-year graduates from universities in Shandong Province, China. It systematically investigates the influence mechanisms of four key external structural factors – employment friendliness, educational credential discrimination in the workplace, personal development expectations, and constraints imposed by traditional norms – on students’ intentions. Specifically, the research centers on the obsessive tendency within these postgraduate examination intentions, aiming to unpack how the aforementioned factors collectively shape this phenomenon. A theoretical model is constructed by introducing self-motivation as a mediating variable. Using quantitative research design, data were collected via a questionnaire survey, yielding 386 valid responses. Partial least squares structural equation modelling (PLS-SEM) was conducted using SmartPLS for empirical analysis. The results indicate that employment friendliness exerts a significant negative effect on obsessive postgraduate examination intentions, whereas workplace educational credential discrimination, personal development expectations, and traditional normative constraints all have significant positive effects, with workplace educational credential discrimination demonstrating the strongest impact. Moreover, self-motivation plays a significant partial mediating role between these external factors and obsessive postgraduate examination intentions, revealing a critical pathway through which external structural pressures are internalized via individual psychological mechanisms and transformed into sustained examination-oriented investment. Further analysis suggests that, within China’s specific sociocultural context, students’ motivations for pursuing postgraduate studies exhibit a dual-track incentive structure that combines “self-development–oriented” motives with motivations driven by the need to respond to familial and societal expectations. This finding challenges the dominant single-track assumption of individual rationality embedded in existing theories of educational advancement motivation. Overall, the study not only deepens theoretical understanding of variations in the intensity and nature of postgraduate examination intentions but also provides targeted empirical evidence for mitigating the extreme intensification of such intentions and for improving university career guidance practices and employment system design.
References
[1] Syzdykova, M. B., Bimakhanov, T. D., Fursova, V. V., Makhambetova, M. A., Abikenov, Z. O. (2022) Position of higher education system graduates in the labor market: search for new opportunities. Academic Journal of Interdisciplinary Studies, 11(3), 50-59.
[2] Yang, J. (2024) The dilemma of Chinese postgraduate employment: first-degree discrimination. J. Educ., Humanities Soc. Sci, 27, 159-165.
[3] Lin, S., Zhang, K., Liu, J., Lyu, W. (2024) Credential inflation and employment of university faculty in China. Humanities and Social Sciences Communications, 11(1), 1-14.
[4] Zhang, B., Zhang, Q., Yao, C., Liu, Z. (2024) The signaling paradox: Revisiting the impacts of overeducation in the Chinese labor market. Education Sciences, 14(8), 900.
[5] Deng, Z., Xiang, H., Tang, W., Cheng, H., Qin, Q. (2024) BP neural network-enhanced system for employment and mental health support for college students. International Journal of Information and Communication Technology Education (IJICTE), 20(1), 1-19.
[6] Li, M., Tang, Y., Jin, K. (2024) Labor market segmentation and the gender wage gap: evidence from China. Plos One, 19(3), e0299355.
[7] Li, M., Hu, X., Jin, K. (2025) The return on education and the gender wage gap in China: a sector perspective. SAGE Open, 15(2), 21582440251327015.
[8] Chen, S., Jiang, Y., Zhang, L., Xu, J. (2024) Chinese adolescent students’ motivational profiles in English learning: a situated expectancy-value theory approach. Current Psychology, 1-13.
[9] Wang, D., Liu, X., Deng, H. (2022) The perspectives of social cognitive career theory approach in current times. Frontiers in psychology, 13, 1023994.
[10] Yao, C., McWha-Hermann, I. (2025) Contextualizing career development: Cultural affordances as the missing link in social cognitive career theory. Journal of Vocational Behavior, 159, 104114.
[11] Zhou, Y., Liu, Y., Xue, W., Li, X., Yang, Z., Xu, Z. (2024) Factors that influence the intent to pursue a master’s degree: evidence from Shandong Province, China. Frontiers in Psychology, 15, 1284277.
[12] Zhou, S., Wu, S., Yu, X., Chen, W., Zheng, W. (2021) Employment stress as a moderator of the relationship between proactive personality and career decision-making self-efficacy. Social Behavior and Personality: An International Journal, 49(10), 1-13.
[13] Lokman, A., Hassan, F., Ustadi, Y. A., Rahman, F. A. A., Zain, Z. M., Rahmat, N. H. (2022) Investigating motivation for learning via Vroom’s theory. International Journal of Academic Research in Business and Social Sciences, 12(1), 504-530.
[14] Permzadian, V., Shen, T. (2024) Assessing the predictive validity of expectancy theory for academic performance. BMC psychology, 12(1), 437.
[15] Bergann, S., Blüthmann, I., Neugebauer, M., Watermann, R. (2025) Intrinsic and extrinsic motives of undergraduate students for pursuing a master’s degree: Applying the Eccles et al. expectancy-value model. PloS One, 20(3), e0317204.
[16] Chand, P., Maharajan, U., Rana, B. (2025) Attitude, risk perception and social factor as predictors of intention to pursue a master’s degree: an application planned behavior theory. MVIC Journal of Management and Information Technology, 1(2), 91-105.
[17] Neneh, B. N. (2020) An empirical study of personality traits, job market appraisal and self-perceived employability in an uncertain environment. Higher Education, Skills and Work-Based Learning, 10(1), 255-274.
[18] Li, Y., Cheng, H.,Qin, Q. (2025) Evaluations and improvement methods of deep learning ability in blended learning. International Journal of e-Collaboration (IJeC), 21(1), 1-17.
[19] Mosbah, A., Al-Jubari, I., Talib, Z. M. (2019) Intention to pursue postgraduate studies in Malaysian universities. International Journal of Innovation, Creativity and Change, 5(2), 591-609.
[20] Wang, Y., Ge, Y., Chu, M., Xu, X. (2024) Factors influencing nursing undergraduates’ motivation for postgraduate entrance: a qualitative inquiry. BMC nursing, 23(1), 728.
Share and Cite
Gan, W., Xiao, M., Yan, Y. (2025) From Rational Choice to Normative Pressure: The Structural Mechanisms and Psychological Transmission Paths of Obsessive Postgraduate Entrance Examination Intentions among University Students in Shandong Province. Global Education Bulletin, 2(5), 43-63. https://doi.org/10.71052/grb2025/NUML3356