Active involvement of students in co-curriculum (sports) versus generic skills

The active involvement of students in sports activities is viewed from different levels of achievement beginning with the national representation of the residential colleges, faculties, and universities in prestigious sporting events at international levels. The skills that are developed through extra-curricular activities are generic skills. The involvement of students in co-curricular activities can help to shape their generic skills, thus leading to self-promotion in the workplace. Therefore, the purpose of this research was to examine the enhancement of generic skills among engineering and technical students of UTHM who are actively involved in co-curricular activities (sports). This study will focus on identifying the factors of involvement, the level of application among students, and the perceptions of the students through their active involvement in extra-curricular activities (sports). A survey was conducted using a quantitative approach. A general questionnaire, which was designed to fulfil the objectives and to answer the research questions for this study, was distributed to 213 engineering and technical student athletes of UTHM who are actively involved in co-curricular activities (sports). It was found that the engineering and technical student athletes of UTHM agreed that their active involvement in extra-curricular activities (sports) was due to interpersonal, intrapersonal and structural factors. The results showed that out of seven generic skills, three constructs of generic skills, namely communication, teamwork and management, demonstrate a high level of application through active involvement in extra-curricular activities (sports). These findings may also help the university to focus on the development of generic skills in engineering and technical students through co-curricular activities (sports) in addition to producing athletes who are able to create a name for the university at national or international level

Work-related teaching and learning methods to foster generic skills in Higher Education. An Italian experience

open5siWithin the framework of modernisation of higher education systems in Europe, universities are invited to go beyond a knowledge-based perspective focused on disciplinary approaches and to be more concentrated on encouraging generic skills to deal with today’s complex and unpredictable career paths. The literature about Work-Related Learning and Work-Integrated Learning offers evidence to research regarding contributions of work-related experiences to the development of generic skills. The first part of the article presents a literature review carried out following the matching among three main keywords: work-related learning, generic skills, and higher education. Resources focused on the integration/teaching of generic skills in formal curriculum or in co-curriculum work-related activities and they were collected in order to explore the link between work-related learning in higher education and the development of generic skills. The focus is to identify valuable considerations to improve teaching strategies and methods. The second part presents an Italian work-related experience developed within the course of “Organizational Intervention Research Methods,” which involved 22 master’s degree students. The work-related assignment will be described in addition to the content analysis process of the 22 collected texts and the findings about the development of generic skills.openDaniela, Frison; Concetta, Tino; Jonathan, W., Tyner; Monica, FedeliFrison, Daniela; Tino, Concetta; Jonathan, W.; Tyner, ; Fedeli, Monic

“Why bother?” Learner perceptions of digital literacy skills development - learning design implications

Digital literacy skills are essential for today’s citizens. These skills are expected for everyday personal use, learning and effective performance at work. The UK’s Quality Assurance Agency for Higher Education (HE) and employers therefore require graduates to be able to demonstrate these skills. However, the cost of UK university education is rising substantially and cash- and time-poor learners must decide what to prioritise. In this context they may favour subject-specific learning rather than skills development. How therefore can we engage learners in developing their digital literacy? The UK’s Open University is a distance learning institution. Its Faculty of Health & Social Care (FH&SC) has evolved different approaches for digital literacy skills development using technology-enhanced learning, based on skills resources that are either generic (usable by any FH&SC module) or are context-dependent and module-specific. Our Evaluating Approaches to Developing Digital Literacy Skills (EADDLS) project is exploring learner experiences of digital literacy skills development to identify their needs and preferences, to inform how we can optimise learning designs to better engage and support learners. Furthermore, since skills activities are widely required across different programmes, there is keen interest in the pedagogical and resourcing implications of using generic activities, as opposed to module-specific activities that are more challenging to share and maintain. We therefore also explore the influence of design features such as generic or module-specific contexts. We gathered data from online questionnaires (n=298) and interviews (n=18) involving learners from three modules. Focusing on the qualitative interview data, we explore what learners value and why, including links between attitude, motivation, and preferred learning designs. We identify reasons for certain findings from our quantitative data, e.g. a preference for integrated, module-specific activities over separate, generic activities and suggest a framework for managing activity complexity based on familiarity with the skill and the context

Do business games foster skills? A cross-cultural study from learners’ views

Purpose: This study seeks to analyse students’ perception of the effectiveness of business games as an e-learning method in management training. This analysis of games’ effectiveness is centred in the generic and managerial skills acquired, through the comparison of students’ opinions in different cultural contexts within Europe. Design/methodology: The analysis focuses on 120 management students at postgraduate level who use the same business game at different universities in five European countries: Spain, Ireland, Portugal, Italy and Germany. Findings: The results indicate that students positively assessed the generic and specific managerial skills fostered by the business game. The generic skills most valued were information and decision-making, and leadership. Regarding the specific skills, the most valued were management skills and the least valued, skills related to planning and the acquisition of theoretical knowledge. However, significant differences were found between students in different cultural contexts and education systems in the case of certain specific managerial skills. Practical implications: This finding suggests that the students’ perception of how a business game helps them acquire specific managerial skills is influenced by cultural aspects and previous exposure to experiential learning, which determine that the teachers’ role and the teaching process should be adapted to the students’ learning model. Originality/value: With this study, a better knowledge about the students’ perception of this e-learning method is obtained, not just considering a specific educational environment, but comparing opinions of students from different cultural contexts, which adds value to the analyses developed.Peer Reviewe

The Growth and Valuation of Generic Skills

Using a method for measuring job skills derived from survey data on detailed work activities, we show that between 1997 and 2001 there was a growth in Britain in the utilisation of computing skills, literacy, numeracy, technical know-how, high-level communication skills, planning skills, client communication skills, horizontal communication skills, problem-solving and checking skills. Computer skills and high-level communication skills carry positive wage premia, as shown both in cross-section hedonic wage equations and through a within-cohorts change analysis. No part of the gender pay gap can be accounted for by differences in levels of generic skills between men and women.skills, wages, computers

The Impact of Task- and Team-Generic Teamwork Skills Training on Team Effectiveness

This study examined the effects of training team members in three task- and teamgeneric teamwork skills: planning and task coordination, collaborative problem solving, and communication. We first examined the degree to which task- and team-generic teamwork skills training impacted team performance on a task unrelated to the content of the training program.We then examined whether the effects of task- and team-generic teamwork skills training on team performance were due to the transfer of skills directly related to planning and task coordination, collaborative problem solving, and communication. Results from 65 four-person project teams indicated that task- and team-generic teamwork skills training led to significantly higher levels of team performance. Results also indicated that the effects of task- and teamgeneric teamwork skills training on team performance were mediated by planning and task coordination and collaborative problem solving behavior. Although communication was positively affected by the task- and team-generic teamwork skills training, it did not mediate the relationship between task- and team-generic teamwork skills training and team performance.Theoretical and practical implications of these results are discussed, as well as possible limitations and directions for future research

Assessment of Generic Skills through an Organizational Learning Process Model

This contribution has been published in this repository with the permission of the publisher. This contribution was presented in WEBIST 2018 (http://www.webist.org/?y=2018) and has been published by SCITEPRESS in http://www.scitepress.org/PublicationsDetail.aspx?ID=y9Yt0eHt02o=&.The performance in generic skills is increasingly important for organizations to succeed in the current competitive environment. However, assessing the level of performance in generic skills of the members of an organization is a challenging task, subject to both subjectivity and scalability issues. Organizations usually lay their organizational learning processes on a Knowledge Management System (KMS). This work presents a process model to support managers of KMSs in the assessment of their individuals’ generic skills. The process model was deployed through an extended version of a learning management system. It was connected with different information system tools specifically developed to enrich its features. A case study with Computer Science final-year students working in a software system was conducted following an authentic learning approach, showing promising results.Visaigle Project (grant TIN2017-85797-R)