Identifying barriers and solutions to develop the employability of bachelor's graduates in Behavioral Sciences courses

The general purpose of this study is to identify the barriers and solutions for the development of graduates' employability from the perspective of faculty members, employers and experts in the field of employment for a bachelor's degree in behavioral sciences courses. The current research is a qualitative research of the phenomenological type. The participants of this research are faculty members, employers and employment experts. The sampling method in qualitative research is the purposeful sampling method of the theoretical sampling type. Among the interviewees were 15 faculty members and 12 employers. Data were collected through semi-structured interviews. The content validity of the interviews was reviewed by 5 higher education experts and was used after confirmation. The obtained data from this study were analyzed by the Thematic analysis method. The analysis of the first interview began with open coding and finally reached theoretical saturation in interview 27. A total of 109 themes related to the challenges and barriers to the development of graduates' employability were obtained from these interviews. Finally, a total of six major barriers were classified as "individual barriers", "academic barriers", "social barriers", "cultural barriers", "economic barriers" and "political barriers". Furthermore, in 21 sub-obstacles including: cognitive-behavioral problems, motivational weakness, avarice, lack of entrepreneurial skills, weakness of academic and Job Competencies, lack of quality training courses, academic weakness, curriculum defects, lack of appropriate social contexts, incompatibility of organizations, cultural weakness, lack of employment plans, employment injustice, inadequate needs assessment, economic problems, a mismatch between human capital and the labor market, poor connection between human resources and the labor market, financial resources shortage, lack of effective management, inefficient policies, and a reduction of international interactions. Also, the results showed that the most important solution for the development of employability from the perspective of faculty members and employers is the need to review and revise the curricula.