Publisher
University of Tennessee at Chattanooga
Place of Publication
Chattanooga (Tenn.)
Abstract
Students who obtain a bachelor’s degree in psychology gain a variety of knowledge and build an understanding of social constructs, behaviorism, empirical research designs, levels of statistical analysis, and a deeper understanding of problem-solving. However, psychology students who directly enter the workforce face dauntingly high unemployment rates despite having gained these skills . A possible explanation for psychology graduates’ chronic underemployment is that they do not understand how their learned skill sets translate into the workplace. The proposed study aims to address this gap by developing a survey to assess psychology students’ understanding of the knowledge and critical skill sets they gain in their degree program and their understanding of the practical, transferable implementations of these workplace skills. Researchers will identify relevant Knowledge, Skills, Abilities, and Other characteristics (KSAOs), and undergraduate psychology students will be surveyed on whether or not they’ve learned or gained the selected KSAOs in psychology classes. This data will then be used to design a KSAO matrix that provides students a resource to identify KSAOs acquired throughout their psychology education. The outcomes of the proposed study will provide insight on what undergraduate psychology students know and understand about the application of what they have learned through their education. This knowledge can then be used to design interventions, courses, or training that will assist students in articulating what they have learned in their training to the job market and future careers.
Date
October 2020
Subject
Industrial and organizational psychology
Document Type
posters
Language
English
Rights
http://rightsstatements.org/vocab/InC/1.0/
License
http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/
Included in
Linking psychology curriculum with career skills: The student perspective
Students who obtain a bachelor’s degree in psychology gain a variety of knowledge and build an understanding of social constructs, behaviorism, empirical research designs, levels of statistical analysis, and a deeper understanding of problem-solving. However, psychology students who directly enter the workforce face dauntingly high unemployment rates despite having gained these skills . A possible explanation for psychology graduates’ chronic underemployment is that they do not understand how their learned skill sets translate into the workplace. The proposed study aims to address this gap by developing a survey to assess psychology students’ understanding of the knowledge and critical skill sets they gain in their degree program and their understanding of the practical, transferable implementations of these workplace skills. Researchers will identify relevant Knowledge, Skills, Abilities, and Other characteristics (KSAOs), and undergraduate psychology students will be surveyed on whether or not they’ve learned or gained the selected KSAOs in psychology classes. This data will then be used to design a KSAO matrix that provides students a resource to identify KSAOs acquired throughout their psychology education. The outcomes of the proposed study will provide insight on what undergraduate psychology students know and understand about the application of what they have learned through their education. This knowledge can then be used to design interventions, courses, or training that will assist students in articulating what they have learned in their training to the job market and future careers.
Department
University of Tennessee at Chattanooga. Dept. of Psychology