REL Central Ask A REL Response

“This paper calls for a reexamination of the kind of transferable business communication skills that new graduates require as they enter the workforce. Market needs are studied as the focal point for developing relevant exercises to train towards workplace communication competence. The arguments presented in this study are based on an investigation of the communication skills that a sample of Canadian companies in British Colombia deem necessary for new employees. Findings shed light on the importance of bridging the gap between the kind of training offered in business communication skills courses and what the job market expects of new graduates.”

“In 2017, the Office of Career, Technical, and Adult Education continued Virginia’s long history of data-driven evaluation of its workplace readiness skills framework by requesting that the Demographics Research Group at the University of Virginia Weldon Cooper Center for Public Service conduct research to identify and update the skills that are of most value to the state’s many employers. This research consisted of three stages: 1) reviewing relevant literature to identify and understand changing workplace trends; 2) analyzing numerous state and national workplace readiness skill frameworks to evaluate how Virginia’s framework compares; and 3) conducting a survey of Virginia employers and workforce professionals to get their feedback about which workplace readiness skills are most critical for entry-level workers to have, now and in the future.”

“Over the past decade, there has been greater recognition by educators, employers, and policymakers of the importance of behavioral skills and navigation factors (e.g., dependability, cooperation, interests, and goals) for education and career success. A growing body of research shows that these factors contribute to diverse positive outcomes in both education and workforce settings. In addition, recent legislation (Every Student Succeeds Act, 2015) provides states with the flexibility to include a non-academic indicator (in conjunction with traditional academic achievement indicators) when measuring K–12 student progress and success, calling attention to the role of non-academic factors in contributing to educational outcomes. These factors are also important to employers. Surveys of employers indicate an increased need for employees with a range of behavioral and navigation skills that influence work outcomes. Recognizing the significance of behavioral skills and navigation factors, ACT recently advanced the ACT Holistic Framework, a more holistic approach to preparing people for success throughout their education and work journeys. This comprehensive, research based framework includes core academic skills, cross-cutting capabilities, behavioral skills, and navigation factors across critical transitions that are considered essential for achieving education and career success. This report focuses on behavioral skills and navigation factors (drawn from the ACT Holistic Framework) that elementary, middle, and high school teachers, college instructors, and workforce supervisors consider important for success. The following four topics are discussed: 1) the behavioral skills and navigation factors featured in the ACT Holistic Framework; 2) a brief description of the 2016 ACT survey of college and career readiness expectations, by which data were collected on the factors considered integral to success in education and work; 3) survey results from educators and workforce supervisors, along with the potential implications of these findings; and 4) recommendations that translate the importance attributed to behavioral skills and navigation factors into actions for policymakers, educators, and employers.”

“‘Honesty–Humility emerges as a sixth dimension of personality beyond traits similar to the Big Five and could be a unique correlate of job performance. In this study, Honesty–Humility’s ability to predict supervisor ratings of employees’ job performance was examined among workers who provide care for challenging clients. Employees completed 240 items from the International Personality Item Pool (IPIP) measuring Honesty–Humility, Extraversion, Emotionality, Agreeableness, Conscientiousness, and Openness to Experience. Supervisors rated employee performance on 35 job skills. Honesty–Humility correlated positively with supervisor ratings of overall job performance and was a unique predictor of performance ratings over and above the five other main factors in the model (Emotionality, Extraversion, Agreeableness, Conscientiousness, and Openness to Experience). Honesty–Humility appears to be an important personality trait in predicting job performance in care-giving roles. Implications for selecting and hiring personnel are discussed.”

“With an increased appreciation of students’ social-emotional skills among researchers and policy makers, many states and school districts are moving toward a systematic process to measure Social-Emotional Learning (SEL). In this study, we examine the measurement properties of California’s CORE Districts’ SEL survey administered to over 400,000 students in grades 3 to 12 during the 2015–16 school year. We conduct analyses through both classical test theory and item response theory frameworks, applying three different polytomous IRT models on both the full student sample and on separate samples from each grade. From these analyses, we summarize the psychometric properties of items at each grade level, compare items’ functionality across grades, compare student outcomes from IRT models and the classical approach, make suggestions on approaches to modeling and scaling the SEL survey data, and identify items, by grade, that do not contribute positively to measurement of each outcome. Finally, we discuss policy implications in using SEL measures among educators, administrators, policy makers, and other stakeholders.”

“Work-based learning (WBL) has long been used in career and technical education (CTE) to allow students to practice the knowledge and skills they acquire in the classroom within a ‘real-world’ business or industry setting. High-quality work placements reinforce schoolbased instruction by providing students with a context for applying academic theory with technical skills, and an authentic backdrop for learning the career-readiness (also described as employability) skills valued by employers. Simulated WBL aims to replicate workplace experiences by allowing students to immerse themselves in a realistic worksite activity without leaving campus (Lateef 2010). Simulations may be adopted for various reasons, including but not limited to the difficulty educators face in placing students with employers; logistical issues, such as the geographical isolation of rural providers or scheduling challenges that limit students’ ability to travel; safety or insurance issues that restrict students’ access or engagement; and labor laws, which may prohibit underage students from working. Relatively little is known about the contribution simulated WBL can make to student learning, its most effective forms or fields of application, or its advantages relative to other forms of instruction. This paper explores the potential benefits that simulated WBL may offer CTE students. It is based on evidence gathered from a review of online resources and telephone interviews with state and local program staff in nine project sites located in five states–Alabama, Kansas, Montana, North Carolina, and West Virginia–using simulation as an instructional tool. Project work focused on classifying the forms that simulated WBL can take, the prevalence of program offerings at the secondary and postsecondary education levels, the perceived benefits of quality programs, and the obstacles to their formation. Although educators are using a range of approaches to simulate work, the CTE programs in the nine sites that were examined fell into three models: (1) those using ‘simulation tools’ to teach occupationally specific skills; (2) ‘simulated workplaces’, intended to replicate jobsite conditions; and (3) ‘school-based enterprises’, operated as student-run businesses that produce and sell products or services. Each model offers opportunities for CTE students to practice and grow career skills, none of which are exclusive to a given approach. While most of the site interviewees praised the use of simulated WBL for CTE programs and offered anecdotal evidence to support their views, rigorous evaluations have yet to be conducted. For this reason, further research is needed to support the introduction, growth, and refinement of this noteworthy instructional practice.”

“Numerous studies and United States Department of Education reports indicate that university graduates lack critical thinking and problem solving skills that are needed for success in both the classroom and the modern workplace. Success in the classroom and workplace is a function of many attributes that change with the situation, but the ability to synthesize complex relationships and identify potential solutions to problems or innovation is a core competency. In this action research project, the curriculum in three business courses were modified to include and emphasize activities that research suggests help develop critical thinking. The Motivated Strategies for Learning Questionnaire (MSLQ) (Pintrich, Smith, Garcia, & McKeachie, 1991) was used to assess changes in 15 learning constructs during a class and correlated with grades. A modified MSLQ (Boyer & Usinger, 2012) was administered at the beginning and end of eight-week courses to provide insight into how students self-assess constructs for success. Results from classes over a 15-month period in 2013 and 2014 indicated improvement in 14 of 15 elements for success with three (intrinsic goal orientation, self-efficacy, and critical thinking) statistically significant.”

“For native and nonnative English speakers, employment increasingly requires proficiency in communication, given its critical role in employees’ ability to successfully carry out work-related activities. Although communicating competently is important for employability, survey findings have suggested that employers believe that colleges are not teaching communication skills sufficiently and are not preparing students adequately for success in their future workplaces. To better inform student preparation and workforce readiness in the United States, we examine (a) which communication skills and language abilities matter more for employment performance and (b) how frequently communicative activities (e.g., face-to-face, telephone, e-mail) occur across job zones. To address these objectives, we analyzed data from the U.S. Department of Labor Occupational Network (O*NET) database, which houses data on the skills and abilities employees need for successful employment and the skills employers search for in employees and which serves as an extensive resource to inform job analysis. We found differences regarding which communication skills matter by job zone. There was agreement across job zones regarding the importance of oral comprehension. On average, respondents across job zones agreed that it matters for more than 70% of jobs. In contrast, writing matters for more than 70% of jobs only in Job Zone 5 (i.e., occupations requiring more than a bachelor’s degree). Study implications suggest that improved training and assessment of workplace English communication skills requires providing learners with opportunities to practice the tasks and types of communication targeted to their job zones.”

“A recent (2015) study conducted by the Society of Human Resource Managers concluded that nearly half of US employers, across industries, believe recent college graduates to be lacking in requisite competencies for communication, broadly, and writing, in particular. This paper describes an advanced writing course in public relations that seeks to ameliorate this proficiency gap by using experiential learning modules, small group learning methods, authentic exercises, and instructional scaffolding techniques to improve student writing and promote workplace readiness. The module series, Writer's Bootcamp, is a short, intensive, and rigorous collaborative among students and instructor aimed at shaping independence and aptitude in writing. Authentic exercises, derived from real-time, real-world situations, were assigned. Students in small groups worked together to appropriate the piece (from the PR Toolbox, a collection of trade writing), collaboratively script, and present a response in thirty minutes. An assessment of learning outcomes involving the programmatic writing rubric, critical incident reports (verbal), and a reflection instrument (written) indicates the Bootcamp as engaging, gratifying, and transformative by students. Limitations are discussed followed by implications for teaching and learning in upper-level, pre-professional writing courses.”

“Objectives: The current objectives include the development of a global competency model applicable across a wide range of jobs, industries, and geographies for university graduates entering the workplace. Method: The competency model was developed utilizing a global panel of subject matter experts and a validation survey of over 25,000 students, faculty, staff, and employers across more than 30 countries. Results: The results showed substantial consistency for the importance and criticality ratings of the competencies, with Achieving Objectives, Analyzing and Solving Problems, Adapting to Change, Communicating Orally, Learning and Self-Development, Making Decisions, Planning and Organizing, and Working Well with Others as the highest-rated competencies across regions, roles, and industries. Conclusions: The most important competencies for students entering the workforce were consistent across different jobs, different industries, and different countries. The diversity and varied experience levels of the sample provide greater generalizability than most competency modeling projects that are often idiosyncratic to specific roles, industries, subjects, or levels. Implication for Theory and/or Practice: University faculty and staff can use the results of the validation study to develop curricula and programs that will be better able to foster important competencies to ensure that their students are better prepared to enter the workplace. Although some organizations emphasize leadership as important for all professional employees, Managing the Work of Others, Leading Others, and Influencing Others were consistently rated lower in importance by employers across all roles and regions and may not be appropriate as the primary focus of skill development for new graduates.”

“The overall goal of the meta-analytic review of the most frequently studied proactivity concepts–personal initiative, proactive personality, taking charge, and voice–was cleaning up the number and overlap of proactivity constructs and examining their construct validity. We provide a unifying framework for proactivity theory and a nomological net. We studied 163 independent samples (N = 36,079). The meta-analysis found high correlations between proactive personality and personal initiative/personality. Further, there were strong relationships between voice, taking charge, and personal initiative/behavior. For construct clean-up, we suggest that the two proactive personality constructs can be taken as functionally equivalent and that this is also true to some extent for the three proactive behavior constructs–the latter signify proactive behavior. All proactive concepts showed clear correlations with performance (from .13 to .34 depending upon construct and objectivity level of performance). However, the proactive personality concepts were also highly correlated with the Big Five personality factors and showed very low to no incremental validity for work performance; this is contradictory to prior meta-analyses on proactive personality and is discussed in detail. In contrast, proactive behavior scales (personal initiative/behavior, taking charge, and voice) predicted job performance well above and beyond personality.”

“The phrase ‘preparing students for college and career’ has become so ubiquitous that it has become almost a mantra in educators’ discourse in recent years. Whether mentioned in the Common Core State Standards, in the mission statements of high schools, or in political campaigns, improving the college and career readiness of young people is a concept that few can disagree with. Much attention has focused on how to prepare students ‘academically’ for life after high school. But ‘readiness’ also means having the knowledge and skills to make informed choices about careers and postsecondary education options and–once graduated–to successfully navigate both worlds. High schools are expected to teach these skills and knowledge but are rarely given the guidance or tools to do so. With a grant from the Institute of Education Sciences in the U.S. Department of Education, MDRC and its project partner Bloom Associates developed and piloted a program to help schools build or strengthen their college and career exploration programs. Called ‘Exploring Career and College Options (ECCO),’ the program was designed specifically for career academies but can be adapted to fit many educational settings. ‘Career academies’ are schools within schools that enroll up to several hundred students. They are organized by a career theme, such as health sciences or media arts. Besides regular high school courses, career academy students enroll in a sequence of career-technical courses centering on the theme area. Finally, students participate in internships and other experiences in workplaces–which is often called ‘work-based learning’–to reinforce the connections between what they learn in the classroom and their future careers. An earlier random assignment study of career academies conducted by MDRC demonstrated the effectiveness of the model. Over the years, as the number of career academies grew, the parallel pressure to ensure that all students meet high academic standards inadvertently crowded out time for career exploration activities–the very activities that nonexperimental evidence from the MDRC study suggests may have played an instrumental role in causing the large increases in earnings that career academy participants experienced over the eight-year period following high school graduation. Career academies typically cite a lack of time, skills, and resources as the reason for not offering such activities to all of their students. ECCO is a capacity-building program to help career academies offer opportunities to students to learn about their workplace and postsecondary options through four core components: (1) a series of one-hour in-class lessons; (2) visits to local work sites; (3) visits to college campuses; and (4) a six-week internship offered to all students in the summer before or during their senior year. The curriculum includes guidance for educators on how to arrange and manage students’ out-of-school experiences as well as guides for partnering employers. This report summarizes findings from a three-year study of the implementation of the ECCO program. ECCO was launched in 18 career academies in six school districts in three states: (1) California; (2) Florida; and (3) Georgia. The purposes of the study are to document the experiences of these schools in adopting the program and to assess the extent to which, when given support and resources, programs like ECCO can be fully implemented. The study also collected descriptive data to assess the promise of the program to improve student participation in career and college exploration activities and to improve their awareness of postsecondary options.”