Article | Open Access
| Ahead of Print | Last Modified: 27 October 2025
Perceived Social Support and Craftsmanship Spirit in Vocational Students: Mediating Roles of Professional Identity and Identity Recognition
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Abstract: In the context of a transforming manufacturing industry globally, skilled talents with a “craftsmanship spirit” are crucial for enhancing industrial competitiveness. While existing research primarily focuses on the development of “craftsmanship spirit” among frontline workers, it often overlooks the cultivation of this spirit in “skill‐oriented reserve talents” within higher vocational education. This study, grounded in social support theory, investigates how “perceived social support” among higher vocational students positively influences the development of their “craftsmanship spirit,” with “professional identity” and “identity recognition” acting as mediators. To mitigate potential “common method bias,” we employed a multi‐wave survey design, collecting data from 348 students across three higher vocational institutions at three different time points. The findings reveal that “perceived social support” significantly and positively impacts the development of “craftsmanship spirit” in higher vocational students. Furthermore, both “professional identity” and “identity recognition” are essential mediators in this relationship. This research advances the theoretical understanding of “craftsmanship spirit’s” antecedents while offering practical guidance for fostering professional ethics and identity cognition among skill‐oriented talents in vocational education.
Keywords: craftsmanship spirit; higher vocational education; identity recognition; perceived social support; professional identity
Published:
Ahead of Print
Issue:
Vol 14 (2026): Educational Equity and Sustainable Development: Stories From the Greater Bay Area in China (In Progress)
© Tengfei Guo, Youyu Hu, Yan Liang, Chenzhi Cai, Qian Li, Yakun Ni. This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0), which permits any use, distribution, and reproduction of the work without further permission provided the original author(s) and source are credited.