International Journal of Evaluation and Research in Education (IJERE) Vol. 12, No. 2, June 2023, pp. 1007~1015 ISSN: 2252-8822, DOI: 10.11591/ijere.v12i2.24323  1007 Journal homepage: http://ijere.iaescore.com How to improve career construction for civil engineering students? Ida Nugroho Saputro 1,2 , Soenarto 1 , Herminarto Sofyan 1 1 Postgraduate Program of Technology and Vocational Education, Universitas Negeri Yogyakarta, Yogyakarta, Indonesia 2 Building Engineering Education, Universitas Sebelas Maret, Surakarta, Indonesia Article Info ABSTRACT Article history: Received Apr 13, 2022 Revised Dec 28, 2022 Accepted Feb 1, 2023 Career construction has received significant attention from Scholars in various countries. Strengthening career construction is believed to help individuals get closer to students’ career choices according to their field of expertise. However, studies on establishing career construction for vocational students involving instructional quality factors, social support, and career self-efficacy have not been found. Therefore, this study examines the antecedent factors that shape career construction by involving instructional quality, social support, and career self-efficacy of vocational high school students. This study proves that career construction is directly influenced positively by career self-efficacy. The instructional quality and social support, however, had no direct impact on how a profession was constructed. Another finding, career self-efficacy is directly influenced positively by the quality of instructional and social support of students. Finally, this study reveals that career self-efficacy acts as a mediator to mediate the effect of instructional quality and social support on the career construction of civil engineering vocational high school students. The findings of this study have significant ramifications for practitioners in vocational education who are creating strengthening programs or career development for vocational students. Keywords: Career construction Career development Career self-efficacy Instructional quality Social support This is an open access article under the CC BY-SA license. Corresponding Author: Ida Nugroho Saputro Building Engineering Education, Universitas Sebelas Maret Jebres, Surakarta, Central Java 57126, Indonesia Email: idanugroho@staff.uns.ac.id 1. INTRODUCTION Career development and preparation for vocational education graduates is a critical issue to describe the extent to which the success of vocational education in shaping career readiness for students. The primary reason is that philosophically, vocational education is education that prepares students to be skilled in specific skills. So, it is natural that vocational education graduates have high expectations of job acquisition or career success after graduation. In addition, getting a job following the competencies possessed is hope for every vocational education graduate. Thus, information about vocational education graduates ’ career construction is essential to determine their career readiness. According to Savickas [1], the study of career construction has become increasingly prominent in the study of career psychology. Many scholars give essential attention to career construction development [2]–[6]. Career construction theory is a key idea for individual career development, notably in assisting clients in directing their career choices [5], [7]–[10]. Although much literature examines career construction, there are still limited studies that discuss how career construction is formed among engineering students.