Abstract:

As technology is pervasive in all aspects of life, students’ technology competency becomes essential in all disciplines of higher education. To fully prepare college graduates to function competently and productively in their career, it is important to examine employers’ views of technology competency and our graduates’ readiness. Obtaining employers’ perspectives not only engages employers in building skills of their potential employees, but also fills in a gap between academic program outcomes and workplace competencies or expectations. Using a qualitative approach by interviewing employers in Southeastern United States across a range of fields, the authors described the major functions and dimensions of technology competency, compared similarities and differences across the disciplines, and integrated the results to inform theory and pedagogy. The main purpose of this research was to investigate how well new graduates from selected disciplines can transfer technological skills, how they learned and/or used these skills during their program of study. Technology skills may be required in the performance of their first jobs as they transition from classroom to employment so that curricular changes or revisions can be made if needed to improve outcomes. Over this manuscript, investigators also introduced how a multi-disciplinary approach, which involved faculty from different backgrounds (Civil Engineering and Construction, Education and International Trade) through the Scholarship of Teaching and Learning (SoTL)—Faculty Learning Communities (FLCs), was used to explore perceptions of technology competency.

Using the semi-structured interview protocol, the investigators interviewed four participants as company technology supervisors, two school principals and two other business managers. Results showed that all participants were dependent on the use of technology, but the degree of sophistication varied widely. While the participants reported their new hires were able to use foundational technology, the actual usage varied among the disciplines and their discipline-specific technology knowledge was often limited. Overall, the study recommends that use of discipline-specific software should be incorporated into curriculum with more depth. Institutes of higher education (IHE) need to continue fostering students’ soft-skills such as teamwork and self-efficacy, so graduates will be better prepared in the workplace.

As a different facet of this investigation, experiences and strategies regarding collaboration and learning experiences of the SoTL project will be shared and an in-depth understanding of technology competency defined by employers through the results of the study will be presented. The paper will comment on the value of collaboration and the faculty learning community in nurturing the SoTL research culture. The results will demonstrate major functions and dimensions of technology competency across and within the disciplines. Results will also be compared with existing models of technology competencies. The study is providing valuable information to the investigators for use in strengthening, improving or revising educational curricula and/or pedagogical strategies to improve outcomes of the educational process involving technology skills pertaining to the respective fields.

Keywords:

Technology, competency, readiness, software, soft-skills.