Highlight # 2 What Have You Learned ? Matching Academic Content to Employability Skills in an Economics
Undergraduate Programme
The Issue at Hand
The Project
Highlight # 2 What Have You Learned ? Matching Academic Content to Employability Skills in an Economics
Title :
Undergraduate Programme
What Have You Learned ? Matching Academic Content to Employability Skills in an Economics Undergraduate Programme
Author :
Dr Panagiotis Sousounis Senior Lecturer in Economics , School of Social Sciences , University of Manchester
DOI :
10.21252 / 83ee-8043
The Issue at Hand
In economics and social sciences in general , it is often difficult for students to connect theory with practice and identify how material that is being taught , develops discipline-specific skills , and importantly , in this context , employability ( or , so called , soft ) skills . This is particularly pronounced for mathematical and , generally , quantitative courses of the standard economics undergraduate curriculum . The abstract nature and broadness of both the subject-specific and generic employability skills to be gained during an economics programme , is adding to the complexity of the task . Not bridging theory with practice leads to disengagement , absenteeism , poor performance , and eventually low student satisfaction . Higher education has become almost synonymous to vocational education , and students expect to gain specific employment trajectories from their programmes of study . Universities nowadays routinely report labour market indicators ( e . g ., graduates in employment within certain times since graduation , average salaries of graduates etc .) and metrics for each programme of study .
At the same time , employers seek graduates who possess , together with discipline specific knowledge , a broad range of skills and aptitudes ranging from good communication skills to critical , and innovative thinking , and hence universities are expected to develop students ’ transferable skills , competencies , and generic attributes or capabilities ( Jenkins and Lane , 2019 ). Clearly demonstrating how and what skills students gain through studying for an economics degree , and a university degree in general , and the practical implications of the material taught , is important .
The Project
In what follows , I present some reflections on work funded by the Keele University Teaching Innovation Projects Scheme in 2019 / 20 . The project ' s aim was to bring students and staff together in open , semi-unscripted conversations about how the material taught throughout the economics undergraduate programme relate to practice , and how employability and soft skills are developed through various aspects of university and academic life . In so doing , our plan was to develop a small number of digital stories , which would demonstrate the learning journey of typical economics undergraduate students ( see Wu and Chen , 2020 , for a review of the use of digital stories in education ).
The intended learning outcome of the project was for students to come to realisations about how their academic work and life while at university , helped them develop a range of employability skills such as organisation , empathy , teamwork , leadership , adaptability etc . The intention of the project team was for the digital stories to be shared with their peers , and more importantly , with later cohorts of students .
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