Students, the nation’s potential workforce, must acquire the needed entry-level technology skills demanded in the work environment. Business leaders question whether students are graduating from technology programs with appropriate and adequate technology skills. The purpose of this study was to determine how two-year and four-year college students assess their college technology programs and how they perceive the adequacy of the technology skills they had acquired in meeting workplace needs. A secondary purpose was to determine if differences existed based on demographic characteristics of participants. A survey research design was used in this study. The survey instrument consisted of three sections: Section I sought demographic information, Section II dealt with students’ perceptions of their technology programs, and Section III of the questionnaire was designed to have students assess their skills related to various computer applications and functions. Major skill areas include Word®, Access®, Excel®, and PowerPoint®. The findings indicated that participants were satisfied with the quality of their technology programs but they expressed some concern with the areas of instructional materials and integrating technology. Four-year college participants agreed that they had acquired the necessary Word, Excel, PowerPoint, and Access skills. Two-year college participants agreed that they have acquired the necessary Word, Excel, and PowerPoint skills but did not express they had acquired the necessary Access skills. Recommendations included: (a) conducting survey research to identify businesses/industries’ technology needs, (b) improving the questionnaire, (c) interviewing faculty members and students for survey research, (d) conducting a pilot study, (e) establishing validity and reliability for the modified questionnaire, and (f) using research design.

No description available.

Thesis (Ed. Spec.)--University of Wisconsin--Stout, 2008. / Includes bibliographical references.

Thesis (Ed. D.)--Washington State University, May 2009. / Title from PDF title page (viewed on Aug. 4, 2009). "College of Education." Includes bibliographical references (p. 99-106).

Thesis, PlanB (M.S.)--University of Wisconsin--Stout, 2005. / Includes bibliographical references.

The purpose of this study was to capture employers' and recent high school graduates' perceptions of employability skills in a rural region in southwestern Virginia. The specific objectives of this study were: a) to describe the employers' perceptions of expected proficiency levels of workplace readiness skills for new employees in the New River Region; b) to describe the recent high school graduates perceptions of the importance of workplace readiness skills for new employees in the New River Region; and c) to describe employers and recent high school graduates; perceived skills gap for new employees in the New River Region. The study used a multi-method QUAN + QUAL methodology. The data were collected using a researcher-created survey instrument and focus groups. The results from this study revealed that employers' perceptions concerning workplace readiness skills are consistent with skills mentioned in the literature. Work ethics was identified as the highest priority need for employers. Other priority needs identified from the literature were accountability, dependability, empathy, punctuality, and work ethic. One pedagogical implication of the study is that career and technical education teachers should emphasize workplace readiness skills because they are essential for securing and retaining employment. / Doctor of Philosophy / The purpose of this study was to determine employers' and recent high school graduates' perceptions of workplace employability skills in the New River Valley region of southwestern Virginia. The objectives of the research were to: a) examine employers' views of expected proficiency levels of workplace readiness skills for new employees; b) investigate recent high school graduates' perceived levels of their workplace readiness skills; and c) assess the gap between employer expectations and recent high school graduates' levels of job readiness. Data were collected using a researcher-created survey instrument and focus groups. The results indicated that employers' views regarding necessary workplace readiness skills are consistent with those emphasized in the literature. Employee work ethic was identified as the highest priority need among employers. Other priority needs identified in the literature, including employee accountability, dependability, empathy, punctuality, and emotional intelligence, were supported by the research. The study underscored the need for career and technical education teachers to focus on workplace readiness skills to assist students in securing and retaining employment.

Magister Educationis - MEd / A qualitative case study was used to investigate how learners apply a study skills guide during the teaching of mathematics content in a Grade 10 class. A great amount of research and money is continually spent focussing on improving mathematics performance throughout the world. Performance of our learners in South Africa is of concern to the government as well as educators. Researchers agree that many learners lack effective study skills, which is the reason for their poor performance in mathematics. This study intended to infuse study skills in mathematics lessons as an intervention. The study skills intervention sessions were done over a period of 6 weeks. These study skills were infused in topics of the mathematics curriculum which was done in the previous quarter of the school program. Data was collected through interviews, journal entries and a questionnaire. The interviews were done before study skills instruction while the questionnaire was administered after completion of the sessions. Journal entries were completed during the 6 week instruction period by learners. It was found that some learners used the study guide as intended whilst others did not. Furthermore there was improvement in learners' scores for the topics focused on at the end of the study compared to the scores for similar topics in a school-based test written about two months before the intervention. It is concluded that the infusion of study skills in lessons has the potential for improving achievement in high-stakes mathematics examinations.

Higher Education Institutions (HEIs) have been criticised by employers, government and graduates themselves, for not adequately developing required work skills. An example of practice that does develop student skills is a short industrial placement (SIP) where students are expected to solve a real problem in a company, in two weeks, working with one other student. This practice occurs in a one year Masters programme at Cambridge University Engineering Department. This work studies the SIP practice to understand why it is effective and determine lessons that could contribute to solving the wider skills problem. A five year research timeframe, coupled with an annually run programme, enabled a multi-stage study using an Engaged Scholarship methodology. The first-stage was an exploratory study that investigated the initial development of SIP skills, using simulated experiences, in a taught HE based module. Skills development was found to be a complex multi-component process. A theoretical skills development framework was constructed from literature and compared with practice. It was determined that five simulated SIP experiences provided the student with sufficient skills to undertake a SIP in practice and, the most significant problem was that SIP skills were not well defined. The second-stage focussed on defining skills. Skills were found to be context specific and defining skills required both the associated task and its context to be known. With tasks found to be both essential to defining skills and effective in describing what graduates do in practice, a SIP task framework was constructed which was tested on 80 different SIPs in one academic year. The resulting framework comprised twelve problem-solving process-stages, that in total contained 64 different tasks, and five generic task domains. These generic domains were investigated in the third-stage of this research. These were found to be more extensive and complex than anticipated resulting in a reconfiguration of the SIP framework, the generation of SIP specific domain descriptions and partial completion of task frameworks to describe each domain. This research has generated a plausible skills development theory for HEIs, and task frameworks to describe a SIP. Further work has been identified to refine the task frameworks and to continue work on the proposed skills development theory.

Soft skills in the engineering profession have been a well-known topic for many years because of the idea that engineers lack these skills. Working engineers and hiring managers are looking for engineers who differ from this idea of engineers who lack soft skills to engineers with great "soft skills" on top of their hard, or technical, skills. However, some engineers are reluctant to give up their technical world for a more social way of doing things. While there have been numerous studies to remedy this problem, simply identifying the need for engineers to gain more soft skills has mot been effective thus far. This paper reviews the current literature behind the terms and use of "soft skills" and "entrepreneurial skills" as well as attributes of engineers' success. In this research, "soft skills" and "entrepreneurial skills" are applied to an assessment of adults through a survey, and analytical conclusions are drawn to understand peoples' opinions on the two terms.

Research report / At the time of this study, South Africa found itself in an economic growth phase. This was coupled with an acute shortage of engineers in the country, as well as in a number of foreign countries, who found themselves in similar growth phases. Foreign firms actively embarked on campaigns to recruit South African engineers to alleviate their shortage, to the detriment of the donor country. The objective of this study is to determine the propensity of engineers to emigrate and the main drivers for this in order to provide information to craft strategies to combat and mitigate the shortage of engineers. The research process involved the consultation of relevant local and international literature regarding the skills shortage, the extent of emigration from South Africa and the main drivers for this. Data were collected by means of self-completed questionnaires in order to gauge the sentiment of graduate engineers towards emigration. One hundred and fifteen responses were received. Key associations and relationships were then analysed. The study found that the engineers most likely to emigrate were either in their late twenties or were older than 55. They are likely to be white males from either the public or private sector, or who are self-employed. Approximately 10% of graduate engineers are likely to leave South Africa within a short period of time (less than one year) as they have already taken some measures in order to do so, 16% may leave within two years and 27% may leave within the next five years. Australia is by far the most popular destination for South African engineers, followed by Canada, Europe and the United Kingdom. The main country-related drivers causing South African engineers to consider emigration are crime and violence, confidence in the South African government and political uncertainty. The main work-related driver causing engineers to consider emigration is the policy of affirmative action. Of the engineers with a “high” emigration potential, just over half indicated that they would emigrate permanently. In order to at least retain existing engineers in South Africa, the factors causing them to consider emigration should be addressed. In order to increase the number of engineers in the country, more emphasis should be placed on mathematics and science at school, thereby increasing the number of candidates who qualify for admission to engineering courses. It also needs to be ensured that universities have the capacity to train the increased number of engineers required on an ongoing basis.