Mindset Matters: A pilot test of personal initiative training for university students in South Africa

Bernhardt, Talia

Mindset Matters: A pilot test of personal initiative training for university students in South Africa

Thesis / Dissertation

2026

Publisher

University of Cape Town

Department

African Cinema Unit

Faculty

Faculty of Humanities

Abstract

In the current context of chaos, complexity, and competition, it is widely acknowledged that young graduates need to show Personal Initiative (PI) to successfully navigate the University-to-Work transition (UTWT). This is especially true in South Africa, where jobs are scarce and un(der)employment and precarious work are ubiquitous. Personal Initiative (PI) training is a promising intervention in this regard that has been shown to increase career success by fostering proactive behaviours. Moreover, it is a short-term and costeffective intervention that is applicable in research-constrained contexts. While PI training has been shown to increase PI in global South and student populations, the potential of PI training to enhance the PI of prospective graduates in South Africa, and whether training effects can be maintained over time, has not yet been tested. Thus, the aim of the present study was to conduct a pilot test of PI training among university students in South Africa using an experimental design with pre (T1), post (T2) and 16 months follow-up (T3) with a randomised wait-list control group. Experimental group participants (n = 13) who had participated in a 3day PI training programme were compared to control group participants who had not participated in PI training (n = 10). Contrary to what had been hypothesised, training participants did not have significantly higher levels of PI 16 months post-training. However, they had significantly higher levels of PI one-week post-training compared to before the training, and these effects were perfectly preserved at follow-up. Overall, the findings could imply that, although PI may develop naturally over time among university students, PI training may accelerate the development of PI. This would enable participants to benefit from higher PI sooner. Moreover, the results showed that among university students, the effects of PI training are maintained over time. The study provides initial support of the potential of PI training to cultivate PI behaviour in prospective graduates in South Africa. However, as no control group data was collected at T2, it is uncertain how long it took for PI in this non-trained group to organically develop compared to the experimental group. Additionally, the relatively homogenous and small sample (n = 23) limits the generalisability of these findings to the broader population of university students in South Africa. Therefore, additional research with a larger and more representative sample of South African university students, and which includes an initial post-test observation for the control group, is needed.