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The aim of this Scholarship of Teaching and Learning (SoTL) study was to examine instructional methods that promote students' generic workplace-relevant competence in university education. We investigated courses that differed from each other in their ways to engage students in practicing collaborative knowledge work and career skills. Students from three agricultural sciences courses answered a questionnaire to self-assess their learning of collaborative knowledge-work practices and studying in the courses. The students assessed that the course based on real project work supported the learning of collaborative knowledge practices better than the courses that did so through simulated practices or group work for content learning. Students appreciated tasks where they did something for further use, like producing a CV or solutions for a customer. The results indicate that authenticity of course activities and outputs are important characteristics of assignments aiming at enhancing workplace-relevant competencies and learning of knowledge-work practices. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Copyright of Revista de Ciencias Sociales (13159518) is the property of Revista de Ciencias Sociales de la Universidad del Zulia Venezuela and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

The recent turbulent global changes have highlighted the advancement of generic and technical skills, as responses to the comprehensive challenges of the environment. This is how in the present investigation constructionism and hermeneutics are used as a methodology to achieve contributions of scientific rigor, conceptualizing the variables; with a positivist approach, using literary study, to generate theoretical reflections based on contemporary and disciplinary foundations, and thus understand literature, build concepts, and generate reflections. The findings show that ICT-focused skills condition the employability of human talent and its effect on resources, elements, and capabilities in generating value. It is concluded that the generic and specific skills of people currently prevail as indicators of achievement, resulting in the actions performed and sustainability. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The graduate employability has seen most governments, institutions of higher learning and industries engaging each other, as industries feel universities and colleges are churning out graduates that are not work ready. This has led to many strands to the discourse of graduate employability. One strand of the discourse is whether the higher education institutions should produce work-ready graduates. Another strand of the discourse is on how these institutions can make their graduates work ready, if it is an expectation that the graduates should be work ready. There is also another strand of the discourse on what constitutes graduate employability, that is, what skills make graduates work ready. This article looks at the latter from the perspectives of Agricultural Technical and Vocational Education and Training (ATVET) students in Zimbabwe. The article reports on part of a major study that was conducted on student internship and employability. Data was collected through focus group discussions with final year students from three agricultural colleges, that were selected using an eclectic sampling strategy which incorporated both typical case and maximal variation. The study showed that students view soft skills, namely entrepreneurship, financial literacy, innovativeness, ethics, problem-solving, honesty and some technical skills as essential to them. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Hybrid Service-Learning, an emerging trend of combining co-curriculum course embedded with service-learning instructional strategies in online settings, has increasingly gained popularity, as many service-learning educators are moving into online platforms. The ongoing COVID-19 pandemic has accentuated its needs, thus forcing education systems worldwide to find alternatives to face-to-face instructions, one of them being Hybrid Service-Learning. This has prompted many researchers to attempt utilising gamification in online courses to increase students' engagement. The purpose of this research was to report a Gamified Hybrid Service-Learning (GAMYSEL) through students' level of engagement proposed by Schlechty, used as a data classification to compare students' scorings in their earning of points, badges, level and leaderboards. The results of the study indicated that, the students' levels of engagement were relatively high through Advocacy Hybrid-Service Learning approach, where majority of them achieved the Strategic Compliance and Optimal Engagement categories. The students' generic skills were further analysed with one-way repeated measures ANOVA and it was discovered that, GAMYSEL had positive impacts in developing these skills in five stages of service-learning. Both of these findings suggest that student's engagement and generic skills had a significant effect on students learning after the use of GAMYSEL. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The present study aimed to investigate the perceptions of Afghan EFL students towards critical thinking (CT) and problem-solving (PS) skills. The study investigated whether there was any significant difference in the participants' response across gender and their class level. The researchers used SPSS version 26.0 to analyze the data. The study employed descriptive and inferential statistics mainly (frequency, percentage, independent sample t-test, ANOVA, and a correlation test). The findings revealed that Afghan EFL learners were highly equipped with CT and PS skills, and they held positive perceptions regarding these two competencies of the 21stcentury skills. In addition, no significant differences were found in the perceptions of the student towards the use of CT and PS skills by gender. Moreover, the participants' classes had a significant impact on their responses. A significant relationship between CT and PS skills was found. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Copyright of Revista de Ciencias Sociales (13159518) is the property of Revista de Ciencias Sociales de la Universidad del Zulia Venezuela and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

The study aims at analyzing the effectiveness and practicality of BIL program to improve the generic skills in learning biology. This study was a pre-experimental study with one group pre-test and post-test design on 138 students divided into four groups at several universities in Mataram. The practicality of the program is measured using an observation sheet and effectiveness is measured by an essay test based on a generic skills rubric Data were analyzed using paired t-test, n-gain and ANOVA test. The results showed a significant increase in generic skills, p < 0.05, with an average n-gains of 0.09 to 0.53, and there were differences for the four groups. The practicality results show that the BIL program fulfills the practical requirements with observations of the implementation of learning by 97% in the good category. Thus, it can be concluded that the BIL program is effective and practical for improving generic skills. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

KOSENs not only try to increase students' engineering abilities and literacy, which is the ability to use knowledge and skills, but also their competency, which we consider is the ability to apply knowledge and skills to any problem that might arise outside the walls of school. So the present study analyzes the relationship between a teacher's evaluation of students' self-assessment by "Daifuku-cho," which is used for teacher-and-student interaction in PE class, and their competency improvement using PROG test scores. The result confirmed that students' daily self-reflection and teachers' feedback on them are important, and the outcome of their daily self-reflection can quantitatively show the growth in their competency. In particular, we report that the interaction between students and their teacher through the use of "Daifuku-cho" enhanced their learning and also that by comparing what the students wrote in "Daifukucho," their grades and the results of PROG test, we suggest that the better students reflected themselves using "Daifuku-cho," the more their competency developed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Related previous studies have recognized service learning ability to improve students' generic skills during the service learning projects, however strategies for implementing and evaluating the effects of service learning on students' generic skills in online environment remain limited. Therefore, this study conducted to identify what are the generic skills mentioned in students' reflections, the differences when the responses compare to students' performance in the course, and to analyze students' perception towards the integration of e-Service Learning platform. A learning environment was created using face-to-face with integration of online delivery of service learning. By the end of the course, thirty-five students were required to reflect upon their learning process while using the e-Service Learning platform. Results showed that the design of the learning environment was effective in promoting the development of these generic skills such as Global Citizen, Scholarship, Adaptability and Team-working. The major contribution of this study is that generic skills can be promoted through the hybrid strategy of service learning that combine both face-to-face and online delivery. Academic success is strengthened both via the use of technologies as well as through the implementation of experiential learning opportunities such as service learning. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Copyright of Calidad en la Educación is the property of Consejo Nacional de Educacion and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

Copyright of Revista Venezolana de Gerencia (RVG) is the property of Revista de Filosofia-Universidad del Zulia and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

To ensure a smooth transition from studies to professional careers, students' skills and attitudes are often considered of greater value than theoretical knowledge and understanding. Yet, whereas typical academic skills such as research and writing are commonly monitored and trained, generic skills such as teamwork and communication receive scant attention. At Maastricht University, we developed a portfolio to raise awareness about skills required to take full advantage of the Problem-Based Learning environment, and to initiate self-reflection by students. As such, the portfolio also provides an opportunity to engage in a more in-depth assessment of students' skills acquisition. Students assessed their skills at the start of the bachelor programme through a survey that was administered again at two later stages during the first year. Comparing data of 414 students, we provide a unique insight into skills progression in an active learning environment. Repeated measures can thus provide a first impression of the impact of an active learning environment on generic skills acquisition. While we argue that the current portfolio achieves its educational objectives, as an instrument for measurement of skills acquisition it has its limitations. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Objectives: The objective of this study was to explore the medical students' perception on Problem Based Learning (PBL) tutoring process in the promotion of generic skills and compare the tutoring processes between researcher-self as a PBL tutor in particular and other PBL tutors as practitioners in general. Materials and Methods: A cross-sectional study was conducted during year 2015 to 2016 on a purposive sample of 121 students from 12 groups of first and second year UKM medical students of academic session 2014/2015 and 2015/2016. PBL tutoring attributes were included in a pretested questionnaire, measured by Five-point Likert scale; rating was done for researcher-self and other PBL tutors. Data were collected by researcher-self at the end of his PBL tutorials, then complied and analysed. Results: Significant differences were observed in both groups of students about tutoring process between researcher-self and other facilitators in attributes of rapport-building, clearification of PBL concepts and ground-rules, reminding ground-rules periodically, and developing consensual decision-making skills. Also significant differences were observed in one of the groups in attributes: controlled-tutorials by reminding PBL concepts, continual feedback, developing questioning and leadership skills and providing feedback at the end of tutorial. Conclusion: PBL facilitators in general, possess good tutoring skills. However, researchers' PBL tutoring skills showed significant impact in the promotion of generic skills among the students. Despite the limitation as comparison done with other PBL tutors in general, the findings have impact on the needs of high quality faculty training. Large scale studies involving comparison among many individual PBL tutors /practitioners are suggested. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The emergence of sport professions entices the pursuit of sports careers. Graduates are expected to possess a broad set of skills. However, there is limited research on the required generic employability skill. To examine generic skills, an inductive qualitative strand on collecting employability skill set data, including job descriptions and associated employability skill sets explanations using the O*NET OnLine database was followed by a deductive quantitative strand on analyzing the corresponding importance scores of the employability skill sets needed across all sport occupations. The Knowledge-Skill-Ability framework was adopted to identify the top 10 most-needed areas across all sport occupations. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

While not a new teaching and learning approach, debating may be considered novel when included in a suite of more traditional teaching and learning activities. Despite the potential benefits of debates for the development of generic skills, their use in physiotherapy education remains unreported. Thus, our aim was to evaluate student satisfaction of a debate assessment item in a physiotherapy capstone course. We recruited students enrolled in a final year physiotherapy course undertaking a group debate assessment. Students were invited to complete two surveys of their expectations regarding the debate assessment, and their satisfaction after completing the debate. Students were further invited to participate in a focus group. All students participated in the debate (n = 20). Six students (30%) completed the first survey, 16 students (80%) completed the second survey, and seven students (35%) participated in the post-debate focus group. We found that before the assessment item students were apprehensive about the debate, however they felt it would be a beneficial learning experience. After the debate, students claimed they enjoyed the novel assessment and were supportive of its continued inclusion in the capstone course, however, students were ambivalent on the inclusion of debates in earlier courses in the program. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Copyright of Revista de Ciencias Sociales (13159518) is the property of Revista de Ciencias Sociales de la Universidad del Zulia Venezuela and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

Despite the widespread use of the term psychological literacy, it is argued in this paper that it lacks a clear definition and empirical support. The claim that all psychology students possess psychological literacy in the sense of knowing the main ideas and concepts is relatively uncontroversial. However, the claim that they also possess a wide range of generic skills is open to question since most of the skills are ones that all graduates might be expected to possess. The more ambitious claim that a training in psychology produces 'global citizens' is at best aspirational, with little indication that it corresponds to current reality. In order to be useful the concept needs both clearer definition and empirical research to justify the claims made. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Copyright of Revista Virtual Universidad Católica del Norte is the property of Revista Virtual Universidad Catolica del Norte and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

The ETSEIAT (Escola Técnica Superior d'Enginyeries Industrial i Aeronáutica of Terrassa) recently executed pilot programs to introduce generic and specific skills into its study plans. As these pilots are now concluding, an evaluation of their efficiency has been conducted. This paper analyses the answers given by professors who were interviewed (via inperson interviews and online tests) to determine how they developed and evaluated their students' skills. The results of these interviews offer clear data about the progress obtained by the pilot programs, how the professors understood the recently added dynamics and tools, and how the new skills are integrated into the various subjects and courses. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Copyright of International Journal of Instruction is the property of International Journal of Instruction and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

Increasing importance is attached to teaching generic skills to undergraduate students in various disciplines. This article describes an extracurricular, student-led activity for teaching generic skills using the Model United Nations over three months. The activity used the Health Care Simulation Model (HCSM) with peer learning and role-playing to accomplish its objectives. An interview was used to select from undergraduate and postgraduate dental students at Alexandria University, Alexandria, Egypt, to develop a group of staff to act as peer teachers after receiving training (n=77). These peer teachers provided training for 123 undergraduate dental students to serve as delegates who acted as trainees or peer learners. At the end of the training sessions, a conference was held in which the students played the roles of delegates representing officials responsible for health care systems in ten countries. The students reported improvement in generic skills, enjoyed several aspects of the experience, and disliked other aspects of the model to a lesser extent. In multivariate analysis, perceived usefulness of the HCSM was significantly greater for staff than delegates and increased as self-reported improvement in knowledge of health care systems increased. This study suggests that innovative, student-centered educational methods can be effective for teaching generic skills and factual information. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Generic skills are such an important requirement for successful engineers that their development in undergraduate courses is deemed essential. This paper summarizes the design of a blended learning environment based on mathematical thinking and creative problem solving aimed at improving generic mathematics skills in a group of undergraduate engineering students. The main goal of this study is to identify the effectiveness of the designed blended learning mathematics course on engineering students' generic skills. Results indicated that the blended learning engineering mathematics course has a positive effect on students' communication, problem solving and technological skills. However, the scores for both pre- and post-test for students' teamwork skills remained virtually the same. Some students' responses to the mathematics problems and journal writing describing their struggle, progress and growth encountered in the research implementation are also presented. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Abstract: Empirical work exploring the role of travel in assisting the learning of skills is of interest to travellers, educators and employers. Pearce and Foster’s generic skills attributes list was used as a basis to investigate the amount and nature of perceived learning by North American University students. It was established through survey research and tested with ANOVA comparisons that travel experiences were perceived as assisting the learning of generic skills, especially amongst those who had travelled internationally four or more times. Key skills seen as influenced by travel included independence, being open-minded and feeling comfortable around all kinds of people. There was a moderate increase in communication skills. The findings showed close links with previous studies of youth budget travellers. Employers and educators can consider travel to be a learning opportunity affecting the acquisition of key business and generic skills. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

The roles of teachers in higher education are measured in terms of skills imparted to students for getting job. These roles could be strengthened through faculty development. The current study investigated perceptions of students about roles of teachers engaged in imparting development skills and discussed implications of their perceptions for faculty development. Data were collected from 1,100 students of six public and five private universities located in Punjab through a 30-item survey scale which was found reliable at 0.9481 Cronbach's alpha. Principal component factor analysis generated four factors namely intellectual development skills, personal development skills, professional development skills, and social development skills for which mean scores and correlations were calculated. One-sample t-test, independent samples t-test and one-way ANOVA were employed for significance and variance analysis. The study highlighted students' disagreement on the rating scale regarding faculty roles in imparting development skills. Social and personal development skills were in little bit better condition followed by professional development skills, whereas intellectual development skills appeared at the bottom. There is a high degree of need for faculty development at Pakistani universities to help teachers play their instructional, professional and organizational roles in imparting development skills to students as an implication of the study. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Copyright of Intellectual Economics is the property of Intellectual Economics / Mykolas Romeris University and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

The importance of generic skills in career success is a fact that nobody questions. The professional world requires universities to provide specific training so that future professionals can improve their job performance. Although proposals and recommendations have been made to include such skills in the curriculum, universities find such an idea hard to implement. One major barrier is the lack o fan evaluation model in the acquisition of such skills, which are far more complex than those based on obtaining knowledge. This paper proposes a generic emotional intelligence and personality-based model with which to assess generic skills. This kind of model is evaluable and makes it possible to measure student competence. For this study, the model was applied to analyse the profile of computer engineers. The view of experts and professionals was taken into account for the study, and levels of competence were measured in a sample of Computer Engineering students through a series of tests. The results showed differences between student profiles and the opinion of the experts, as well as between the views of professionals and experts. However, a significant similarity was found between the views of professionals and the students' actual skill level. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Life-wide learning can be viewed as the conjunction between formal and informal education. The Camp Adventure Youth Services (CAYS) program was first launched in the 2006 summer in Hong Kong. It represents an integrated life-wide learning model of recreation and leisure services, physical activity, and language learning to accomplish the goal of improving participants' learning. This study aimed to determine the impact of CAYS on four generic skills, namely, collaboration, communication, creativity, and problem solving. The Camp Adventure Scale (CAS) was designed to measure changes in the four generic skill areas before and after completing the CAYS program. In summer 2008 160 children (99 males and 61 females) between 9 years and 14 years from grades 3 to 8 of one secondary school (59 participants) and one primary school (101 participants) in Hong Kong participated in the study. Among the participants, 93 joined CAYS for the first time and the remaining 67 hod prior experience. Participants responded to a self-administered questionnaire under the supervision of the researchers and teachers, The pairwise t-tests show that there were significant gains in participants' collaboration, communication, creativity and problem solving competencies after the CAYS program. These findings suggest that there is potential for the promotion of generic skills in operating a recreation and leisure services program emphasizing program elements that ore aligned and consistent with the educational framework found in formal school settings. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Copyright of RED - Revista de Educación a Distancia is the property of Universidad de Murcia and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

Family tourism has gained increased attention from researchers in recent years; however, few longitudinal studies have examined the psychological benefits of family tourism. Therefore, this study employed a pretest-posttest design to examine the beneficial effects of family tourism on parents' well-being and their children's generic skills. We collected data from 217 families with elementary school children who went on family holidays, administering questionnaires to both parents and children. The results showed that parents' well-being and children's generic skills increased from before to after the family tourism experience. Moreover, a memorable tourism experience and children's skill development through family tourism were positively associated with changes in parents' well-being through family tourism. Our findings highlight the importance of considering multiple perspectives from family members and identify the benefits of their interactions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Holistic competency development is rarely certified in practice, and the assessment of holistic competencies remains an under-researched topic in the education literature. The primary aim of this systematic mixed studies review is to explore students' perceptions on the recognition of holistic competencies. The review found very few studies that specifically focused on or directly addressed student perceptions in this area. Based on the analysis of 31 studies identified from existing literature, three themes were generated: evidence of overall achievement, assessment of holistic competencies in learning tasks, and challenges. The findings show that there is a lack of attention to holistic competency recognition and is a major gap in the current empirical literature. The current review highlights the need for a systematic process of documenting, reporting, and certifying holistic competency in higher education that takes into consideration the broader level of overall recognition and the assessment of competencies. • Generated three themes – recognition, assessment and challenges based on systematic mixed studies review of students' perceptions on the recognition of holistic competencies. • For the recognition of holistic competencies, traditional paper certifications, accreditation, chartered status and digital credentials can potentially be used to recognise and document students' holistic competency development. • The need to address students' lack of assessment literacy in current higher education. • The format for reporting competency attainment that is favoured by employers may not be the same as what is commonly practised by the academic community. • And similarly, the assessment criteria used by teachers may not necessarily reflected the type of skills and attributes emphasised by practitioners in the industry. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Developing in students a deep understanding of the concept of sustainability, and how it applies to engineering, is a difficult task. Here we introduce a novel framework for developing online roleplay simulations for teaching sustainability principles to engineering students, based on a systems model of sustainability. Application of the framework is illustrated with a case study, the Mekong e-Sim, which is an online roleplay simulation set around proposed development issues in the Mekong region of South-East Asia. In 2005, the e-Sim was centred on public inquiries into two proposed development issues, including the Nam Theun II hydropower dam in Laos and the proposed Lancang project in China. The latter includes the blasting of rapids to improve river navigation and the construction of a large hydropower dam. The recommendations in relation to the proposed developments were to proceed with the Nam Theun II dam, but that approval of the Lancang project was unlikely. An evaluation of the 2005 Mekong e-Sim revealed that there was a high degree of interaction between roles about the social, environmental and economic issues surrounding the two proposed hydropower projects, and that the e-Sim was able to develop (i) awareness of the complexity of, and need for, sustainable development, (ii) the ability to see engineering issues from multiple perspectives, (iii) an understanding of the political, social, economic and scientific dimensions of engineering decision-making and (iv) a better understanding of the meaning of sustainable development. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The Camp Adventure™ Youth Services program is a national award-winning model which provides a full range of innovative and dynamic age-appropriate leisure activities. The purpose of this study is to examine basic understanding of how Camp Adventure™ Youth Services uses an integrative cultural model joining leisure, health, physical activities, sport and generic skills in education. This study focuses specifically on applying these areas in Hong Kong primary school settings. A total of 112 Chinese children aged 8-12 year-old from Baptist (Sha Tin Wai) Lui Ming Choi Primary School in Hong Kong, who completed the four and half days residential camp program, served as subjects for this study. The evaluation survey given to the participants used a Likert-type-5-points scale ranging from 1 (strong disagree) to 5 (strongly agree). The participants were asked their opinions on the linkage of a number of generic skills with various camp activities; as well as their understanding of the culture of the United States of America following their participation in the program. The generic skills domain mean score (±SD) and the mean (±SD) for the understanding of the culture of United States of America were 4.14 ± 0.60 and 4.14 ± 0.80, respectively. Participants tend to agree that they improve their generic skills and have a better understanding of the culture of the United States of America after participating the program. Participants were also asked in an open question format to identify the variables in the various learning areas that participants perceived as the most important. Variable responses are categorized into four groups: 1) sports (e.g. America football, baseball), 2) physical activity (e.g. games), 3) English Language learning, and 4) generic skills (e.g. time management, collaboration skill, creativity, self management, and independence). Physical activity was the most cited learning areas among the four categories. The implications for Camp Adventure™Youth Services and Baptist (Sha Tin Wai) Lui Ming Choi Primary School in the Hong Kong Education Reform and an integrated model of leisure, health, physical activity, sport and generic skills in education are then discussed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study considers the self-reported learning achievements of backpackers. Accounts of backpacker learning posted on the internet were explored to construct a generic skills learning framework. In a second study phase in Northern Australia, 372 backpackers provided responses to a questionnaire on their perceived generic skill development. Skills considered to be important by backpackers were moderately to greatly improved by the travel experiences. Further, backpackers with different motivation patterns learnt different kinds of skills. In many instances, the skills acquired were perceived as relevant to future employment. Some travel is its own kind of educational institution; an implicit University of Travel. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

There is significant evidence that an increasing proportion of chemical engineering graduates are continuing on to complete a research-based Masters or PhD programme. In this paper, we firstly present data collected over a 10-year period regarding the work placement of such research-based graduates within Australia at the completion of their higher level degree. While two-thirds of our graduates are placed in research positions, the remaining one third enter positions in engineering, management or the legal and financial professions. Around one half of Australian research-based graduates enter the private sector, a proportion slightly lower than that of comparable American graduates. Given this broad range of career destinations, it is imperative that universities provide research students with the opportunity to gain a broad range of generic skills. While intellectual rigour must remain the cornerstone of a research intensive degree, students should also gain experience in teamwork and leadership roles. They must develop effective oral and written communications skills and they must be capable of thinking outside the square. An understanding of sustain-ability issues, as well as environmental, health and safety regulations is also important. Finally, the proportion of females undertaking research-based postgraduate study is low. Improving the gender balance will require the postgraduate programme to foster a more collaborative environment and one in which feedback, both oral and written, is provided on a regular basis. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

Chemical engineering education is challenged around the world by demands and rapid changes encompassing a wide range of technical and social drivers. Graduates must be prepared for practice in increasingly diverse workplace environments in which generic or transferable attributes such as communication and teamwork together with technical excellence are mandated by prospective employers and society at large. If academe is to successfully deliver on these graduate attributes, effective curriculum design needs to include appropriate educational processes as well as course content. Conventional teacher centred approaches, stand-alone courses and retro-fitted remedial modules have not delivered the desired outcomes. Development of the broader spectrum of attributes is more likely when students are engaged with realistic and relevant experiences that demand the integration and practice of these attributes in contexts that the students find meaningful. This paper describes and evaluates The University of Queensland''s Project Centred Curriculum in Chemical Engineering (PCC), a programme-wide approach to meeting these requirements. PCC strategically integrates project-based learning with more traditional instruction. Data collected shows improved levels of student attainment of generic skills with institutional and nationally benchmarked indicators showing significant increases in student perceptions of teaching quality, and overall satisfaction with the undergraduate experience. Endorsements from Australian academic, professional and industry bodies also support the approach as more effectively aligning engineering education with professional practice requirements. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]