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This study explores the extent of undergraduate students' engagement in interdisciplinary learning experiences across their academic journey and its potential correlation with elevated levels of self-efficacy in learning. Furthermore, the research investigates how the clarity of career decisions and future goals contributes to the perception of relevance, value and alignment of interdisciplinary learning experiences among undergraduate students.

Data were collected using a self-report questionnaire in a longitudinal survey administered annually to undergraduate students at a university in northern Taiwan over four waves from 2018 to 2021. The sample analyzed for this study consisted of 123 undergraduate students who willingly and continuously participated in the research throughout the specified period.

The results showed that self-efficacy within interdisciplinary learning experiences could be classified into three clusters: high efficacy, moderate efficacy and fluctuating efficacy. The determinants influencing these clusters include career decisions and years spent in university. Undergraduate students who have determined their career decisions and are in their latter two years of undergraduate studies demonstrate higher self-efficacy in interdisciplinary learning. Conversely, students who have yet to determine their career decisions exhibit a fluctuating pattern of self-efficacy across the three interdisciplinary learning categories.

Two key limitations of this research include a small sample size and a confined university-specific context, potentially constraining the applicability of the results to a broader population.

This study contributes to the interdisciplinary learning experience in higher education by explaining the significance of undergraduates' self-efficacy and career-related factors. Whereas most research has focused on the effects of self-efficacy, this study investigated the factors that influence undergraduates' self-efficacy.

Over recent decades, talent agglomeration has emerged as a critical topic for scholars, businesses and government officers. Innovative ability is a core competition for high-tech talents. In China, low innovation is the bottleneck, as the high-tech industry usually cannot provide sufficient support for the continuous needs of innovative talents. To enhance the continuous support of talents, it is important to obtain the mechanisms of talent evaluation and flow in high-tech industry. Exploring the incentive factors influencing the scientific and technological personnel, adjust the layout of talents and promote the rational agglomeration. It’s significant to realize the regional economic development.

This study proposes an assessment model using the multi-criteria decision-making method of analytical hierarchy process (AHP) to determine the weights of incentive factors and a nonlinear programing model, from micro, meso and macro perspectives of individual, organizational and social incentives by adopting Maslow’s hierarchy of needs theory, Kurt Lewin’s field theory and Lee’s push-pull theory. After the literature review and interviews with 14 experts, this study produced a research framework and a pairwise comparison questionnaire. In addition, the relative quantitative weights of 3 main categories and 15 indicators are identified and ranked based on the AHP method.

The results demonstrate that the most important dimension is the individual, and the top three highest weighted factors are job satisfaction, sense of working accomplishment and interpersonal relationships. The discussion in this study showed that the proposed model is rational and acceptable to motivate high-tech innovation talent (HTIT) agglomeration for high-tech enterprises, universities, government and start-ups.

The pairwise comparison using the AHP method is limited to expert opinions, which are considered comparatively subjective. The number of incentive factors should be increased, as some indicators may have been omitted from the AHP model.

According to the results, some suggestions can be recommended to corporate executives, HR managers and government officers to attract and retain high-tech talents and further to improve industrial clusters and economic development.

This paper derives a relative ranking of importance based on the opinions of experienced HR specialists, high-tech talent, scholars and government official, and assesses the consistency of results. The ordering represents the importance of indicators and sub-indicators of two levels from respondents’ perspectives in an industry cluster background. The study, focusing on the high-tech industry in China (which is a developing country), offers a unique view, as earlier studies mainly collect data from developed countries.