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This paper investigates, theoretically and empirically, differences between blacks and whites in the United States concerning the intergenerational transmission of occupational skills and the effects on sons’ earnings. The father–son skill correlation is measured by the correlation coefficient (or cosine of the angle) between the father’s skill vector and the son’s skill vector. The skill vector comprises an individual’s occupational characteristics from the Dictionary of Occupational Titles (DOT). According to data from the U.S. National Longitudinal Survey of Youth (NLSY79), white sons earn higher wages in occupations that require skills similar to those of their fathers, whereas black sons in such circumstances incur a wage loss. A large portion of the racial wage gap is explained by the father–son skill correlation. However, a significant unexplained racial wage gap remains at the lower tail of the wage distribution.

The purpose of this study is to investigate the self-perceptions of university information professionals about the current state of their soft skills and to highlight the barriers faced in the development of such skills.

A sequential mixed method research design using a questionnaire followed by in-depth interviews as data collection tools were used to achieve the objectives of the study. Self-completion questionnaires were used to collect the data from 560 respondents spread over 33 universities of Pakistan. Then, 21 interviews were conducted with purposely selected library and information professionals at the qualitative phase.

The findings of the survey revealed that the majority of the information professionals perceived themselves “moderately competent” in soft skills. Only 14.8% information professionals considered themselves “competent”. The qualitative findings revealed that university library and information professionals generally faced several barriers in the development of their soft skills that included “lack of administrative support”, “lack of personal commitment”, “lack of financial support by the parent organizations”, and so many others, which might have affected their current levels of soft skills.

The possible limitation of this study may be the bias of the respondents, toward their self-judgment. During interviews, most of the assistant librarians were not comfortable and expressive. This might be due to lack of soft skills knowledge, interview anxiety and poor communication skills.

This research is the first study in Pakistan that dealt with the state of soft skills and barriers in its development among university library and information professionals having a large number (N = 372) of respondents.

The purpose of this paper is to develop a professional self-efficacy scale for counsellors and psychologists encompassing identified competencies within professional standards from national and related international frameworks for psychologists and counsellors.

An initial opportune sample of postgraduate psychology and counselling students (n=199) completed a ten-minute self-report survey. A subsequent independent sample (n=213) was recruited for cross-validation.

A series of exploratory analyses, consolidated through confirmatory factor analyses and Rasch analysis, identified a well-functioning scale composed of 31 items and five factors (research, ethics, legal matters, assessment and measurement, intervention).

The Psychologist and Counsellor Self-Efficacy Scale (PCES) appears a promising measure, with potential applications for reflective learning and practice, clinical supervision and professional development, and research studies involving psychologists’ and counsellors’ self-perceived competencies. It is unique in being ecologically grounded in national competency frameworks, and extending previous work on self-efficacy for particular competencies to the set of specified attributes outlined in Australian national competency documents. The PCES has potential utility in a variety of applications, including research about training efficacy and clinical supervision, and could be used as one component of a multi-method approach to formative and summative competence assessment for psychologists and counsellors. The scale may be used to assess students’ perceived competencies relative to actual competency growth against national standards, and to identify trainees’ and practitioners’ self-perceived knowledge deficits and target areas for additional training.

In the digital age, the development of students’ career intentions requires serious concentration since these are associated with the students’ future employment and, ultimately, their survival. This study attempted to demonstrate in Pakistan’s Higher Educational Institutes (HEIs) the role of soft skills towards the students' career development (CD) and their future career intentions (CI).

In this study, the researchers used a quantitative approach and a questionnaire to collect the data from the surveyed participants. Finally, the researchers based this study’s findings on 392 useable samples.

By employing the structural equation model (SEM), this study’s findings show that soft skills, such as Creative Self-Efficacy (CSE), Problem-Solving Confidence (PSC) and Teamwork (TW) have a positive and significant effect on CD and CI. However, while Critical thinking and Creativity (CRC) has a positive and significant effect on CD, it has no effect on CI. In addition, this study’s findings confirm, also, that CD has a positive and significant effect on CI.

This study’s findings assist policymakers and university administrators to understand the importance of soft skills in creating CD and CI. These promote the development of employability skills and fulfill its part in preparing graduates for the unpredictable job market. This study’s findings help, also, to develop logical reasoning in making decisions and in dealing with complex organizational issues.

In a practical way, in Pakistan, this study’s findings confirm the role of soft skills towards students' CD and CI.

The purpose of the paper is to address the fundamental nature of skill and identify how an examination of skill may be introduced into theoretical understanding of the entrepreneurial process.

The paper undertakes a fundamental review of skill.

Skill is an under‐researched construct. Skills once learnt are discounted, undervalued and largely ignored, excepting when they are not executed. Skills are multidimensional and continuous, and context‐related. They are not the same as competencies. Skills associated with the entrepreneurial process are primarily theoretical constructs and have been associated with opportunity recognition theory. The initiation of the process through alertness may be challenged and substituted with identification of a social/market valued need. Adopting different paradigmatic approaches to entrepreneurial behaviour yields different issues including problems of measurement and how skills are valued socially, politically and economically. Insufficient empirical research has been carried out to test theory, and identify critical skills.

Further empirical research is needed to test and build theory that resonates with practitioner – in particular of the entrepreneur – understanding. Education and training policies should reflect sound theory and practice and where appropriate fund further work on the nature and development of entrepreneurial skills.

A fundamental review of skill has not been carried out academically since 1990; this paper is timely as it not only addresses that gap, but develops the work by applying an understanding the issues of researching skill to the entrepreneurial process.

The purpose of this paper is to determine whether technical skill provides incremental value over managerial skill in managerial performance for first‐tier managers, and explore potential mediators of this relationship. Hypotheses: technical skill incrementally predicts managerial performance; referent and expert power mediate this relationship; and inspirational appeals and rational persuasion mediate the relationship between power and managerial performance.

A total of 107 first‐tier supervisors from local petrochemical and engineering companies completed an online survey about their professional background and managerial skills; subordinates rated supervisors' technical skill, power, and influence tactic habits. Managerial performance was measured as: production output, subordinate job satisfaction, and subordinate ratings.

Technical skill incrementally predicted subordinate perceptions of managerial performance over managerial skill. Referent power mediated the relationship between technical skill and both subordinate ratings and job satisfaction; expert power only mediated for job satisfaction. Rational persuasion mediated the relationship between expert power and subordinate ratings of managerial performance.

Clear measurement of multidimensional constructs such as managerial performance and technical skill is essential. Limitations include self‐selection bias and availability of objective technical skill measures. Future research should develop component‐based measures of these constructs.

Technical skill is valuable to managers as a source of credibility and a means to identify with subordinates. Technical skill should not, therefore, be the most important criterion in selecting technical managers.

This study helps technical managers better leverage their technical skills in managerial contexts, and provides new research directions for component‐based performance measurement.

The purpose of this paper is to overcome the problems that skill mismatch cannot be measured directly and that demand side data are lacking. It relates demand and supply side characteristics by aggregating data from jobs ads and jobholders into occupations. For these occupations skill mismatch is investigated by focussing on demand and supply ratios, attained vis-à-vis required skills and vacancies’ skill requirements in relation to the demand-supply ratios.

Vacancy data from the EURES job portal and jobholder data from WageIndicator web-survey were aggregated by ISCO 4-digit occupations and merged in a database with 279 occupations for Czech Republic, being the only European country with disaggregated occupational data, coded educational data, and sufficient numbers of observations.

One fourth of occupations are in excessive demand and one third in excessive supply. The workforce is overeducated compared to the vacancies’ requirements. A high demand correlates with lower educational requirements. At lower occupational skill levels requirements are more condensed, but attainments less so. At higher skill levels, requirements are less condensed, but attainments more so. Educational requirements are lower for high demand occupations.

Using educational levels is a limited proxy for multidimensional skills. Higher educated jobholders are overrepresented.

In Europe labour market mismatches worry policy makers and Public Employment Services alike.

The authors study is the first for Europe to explore such a granulated approach of skill mismatch.

The development of health literacy skills is of paramount importance especially for students, as it is associated with their wellbeing and academic success. Assessing students' health literacy is necessary for its advancement. This study comes to fill the need for a valid multidimensional health literacy assessment instrument for secondary school students.

Initially, the authors defined the conceptual framework within which the items of this instrument were generated. Its final form was obtained through three pilot studies. A test-retest followed and, finally, a nationwide survey was conducted on Greek seventh-, ninth- and tenth-grade students (N = 2,800).

A 37-item instrument, the Health Literacy Assessment for Secondary School Students (HeLiASeSS), was developed which includes the following nine dimensions/skills of health literacy: “access to”, “understand” and “evaluate” (health information), “functional communication”, “interactive communication” and “critical communication”, “relying on health information”, “self-efficacy regarding health matters” and “intention for active citizenship regarding health matters”. HeLiASeSS proved to have good stability (ICC = 0.943) and high internal consistency reliability (a = 0.903).

HeLiASeSS offers the possibility of a reliable and valid assessment of secondary school students' health literacy skills providing a multidimensional evaluation of this construct and is expected to be useful in interventions aiming at promoting this type of literacy.

Surveys that include skill measures may suffer from additional sources of error compared to those containing questionnaires alone. Examples are distractions such as noise or interruptions of testing sessions, as well as fatigue or lack of motivation to succeed. This paper aims to provide a review of statistical tools based on latent variable modeling approaches extended by explanatory variables that allow detection of survey errors in skill surveys.

This paper reviews psychometric methods for detecting sources of error in cognitive assessments and questionnaires. Aside from traditional item responses, new sources of data in computer-based assessment are available – timing data from the Programme for the International Assessment of Adult Competencies (PIAAC) and data from questionnaires – to help detect survey errors.

Some unexpected results are reported. Respondents who tend to use response sets have lower expected values on PIAAC literacy scales, even after controlling for scores on the skill-use scale that was used to derive the response tendency.

The use of new sources of data, such as timing and log-file or process data information, provides new avenues to detect response errors. It demonstrates that large data collections need to better utilize available information and that integration of assessment, modeling and substantive theory needs to be taken more seriously.