Action learning: challenges that impact employability skills
Higher Education, Skills and Work-Based Learning
ISSN: 2042-3896
Article publication date: 10 December 2019
Issue publication date: 20 January 2020
Abstract
Purpose
The purpose of this paper is to assess the perceived value of an action learning experience (i-Week) on the development of important soft employability skills applying expectation confirmation theory (ECT).
Design/methodology/approach
A total of 1,295 activities were offered in 36 cities of ten countries. Each activity had a faculty member and multidisciplinary teams to address an authentic situation during one full-time week. The ECT was applied to assess the disparity between what was expected from the students and their actual learning experience. A total of 929 students answered a Perceived Value Questionnaire to measure 14 transversal competences categorized on five employability skills.
Findings
Achievements were statistically higher than expectations in 5 out of 14 transversal competences. The perceived value of the i-Week reflects the impact on soft skills: self-skills, personal, learning, social and systemic. The paper proposed an integrated model to learn these competences from action learning experiences.
Research limitations/implications
The questionnaire is a self-assessment and not an actual performance measure. Besides transversal competences, there were more disciplinary competences that are not included in the study.
Practical implications
The perceived value model of the i-Week could be applied for different educational levels and contexts considering a lower scale. A new version of the Perceived Value Questionnaire on Competences is provided for educational research.
Originality/value
The educational experience, instruments and analysis described in the study might be easily transferred to other action activity used to measure perceived learning results on multiple skills.
Keywords
Acknowledgements
This paper is funded by Instituto Tecnológico y de Estudios Superiores de Monterrey TecLabs. José Guadalupe Escamilla de los Santos, Claudia Susana López Cruz and Claudia Zubieta Ramírez from TecLabs team managed the funding for the presented research study. María Gisela Cante Reyes, leader of the i-Week Initiative, Guillermo Roffe Illades and Montserratt Ochoa Cantú from Intelligence Marketing Department managed the data collection for the questionnaire.
Citation
Olivares, S.L., Adame, E., Treviño, J.I., López, M.V. and Turrubiates, M.L. (2020), "Action learning: challenges that impact employability skills", Higher Education, Skills and Work-Based Learning, Vol. 10 No. 1, pp. 203-216. https://doi.org/10.1108/HESWBL-07-2019-0097
Publisher
:Emerald Publishing Limited
Copyright © 2019, Emerald Publishing Limited