Level of Perceived Employability of Engineering Students in Kathmandu Valley

The discourse of employability revolves around the mitigation of mismatch between educational outcomes and the job market demand. This discourse is pertinent in engineering education as it is dedicated to producing human resources with the required employability skills. In this context, the students - to whom employability is transformed - are in the central focus. Their perceptions about their abilities in demonstrating and performing in the world of work require attention to connect education and their work. Considering this, the level of perceived employability of the engineering students studying in their final year was measured by using a self-constructed scale in a representative sample of 314 students of Kathmandu valley. The finding shows that the graduating students’ perceived employability was not consolidated and optimised to reflect on their behaviour and practices. It is at the level of ‘emergence’ and ‘presence’, which is thus not enough to see in their abilities to perform better. Therefore, the students were not able to perform as per the expectation of the market. The key implication of this study is that the gap of work-study transition stipulated to be minimised for the employability of the graduates with their exposure in the world of work.

What's Missing From the College Transcript?

This chapter describes a qualitative study of how organizations use information to evaluate and hire graduating students into entry-level positions from one pre-professional undergraduate program. The study investigates how campus recruiters and hiring managers make sense of student job applicants' cognitive, non-cognitive, and technical abilities from data presented in résumés, academic transcripts, and through various interview techniques. The findings provide insight into the opportunities and challenges to incorporating alternative representations of learning—Comprehensive Learner Records—into the recruitment and hiring process. The findings also reveal how information about learning and learners is used to establish pipelines for recruiting and hiring recent college graduates. The study informs the design of future assessment and credentialing infrastructures, with the goal of expanding how “learning” is measured, defined, and represented in higher education to enhance diversity, equity, and opportunity for learners.

Self-Assessment of Competencies by Bachelor Students in Computer Science

Competency achievements in a Computer Science Bachelor are studied using self-assessment by graduating students at Baden-Württemberg Cooperative State University. Changes across the two ‘pandemic’ years 2020 and 2021 with respect to subsidiary, satisfaction and competencies are analysed. One goal was to identify which competencies may have suffered due to the different number of online semesters. The data shows very few significant differences by type of competencies. Larger differences may be due to a change in lecturer. Difference in satisfaction in some subsidiaries is found. Students from the 2021 group feel that their grades reflect their actual knowledge less than the 2020 group. The methodology presented here provides a valid tool for long-term quality assessment based on student feedback. There are limitations based on the data elicitation. Students are not required to take the survey. Self-assessment is not considered to be sufficient for a validation of achieved competencies. However, it reflects satisfaction and perceived quality. Autovalutazione delle competenze da parte degli studenti di laurea in informatica. I risultati di apprendimento in un Corso di Laurea di primo livello di informatica sono analizzati nel presente contributo utilizzando l’autovalutazione degli studenti laureati all’Università della Cooperative State University del Baden-Württemberg (Germania). Vengono analizzati i cambiamenti nella progressione di competenze acquisite nei due anni di pandemia (2020 e 2021) in ordine a sede universitaria, livello di soddisfazione e risultati di apprendimento. Un obiettivo era quello di identificare le competenze maggiormente influenzate dall’utilizzo della didattica a distanza. I dati mostrano scarse differenze in ordine al tipo di competenze acquisite. Le differenze più significative sono correlate al cambio di docente. In alcune sedi si rilevano differenze nella soddisfazione degli studenti. Gli studenti del cluster 2021 ritengono che la loro valutazione rifletta le loro conoscenze realmente acquisite, a differenza del cluster di studenti del 2020. La metodologia illustrata nel presente contributo fa riferimento ad uno strumento utile per la valutazione della qualità degli apprendimenti basata sul feedback degli studenti. Le limitazioni connesse allo studio riguardano le modalità di rilevazione dei dati. Gli studenti non sono tenuti a partecipare allo studio. L’autovalutazione non è sufficiente per convalidare le competenze acquisite, consente però di rilevare la soddisfazione e la qualità percepita dagli studenti.

Knowledge on Risk Factors and Practice of Early Detection Methods of Breast Cancer Among Graduating Students of Debre Tabor University, Northcentral Ethiopia

Background Breast cancer is the greatest common cancer in women worldwide, with approximately 1.7 million new cases diagnosed each year in the world which accounts for 12% of all new cancer cases and 25% of all cancers in women. Even though the higher mortality rate of breast cancer in low and middle-income countries, the practice of early detection methods is low and the majority of the patients who appeared at an advanced stage of the disease need palliative care with little survival rates. However, evidence is sparse on knowledge of risk and practice of breast cancer screening methods used among women of reproductive age in Ethiopia. Hence we aimed to assess knowledge on risk factors and practice of early detection methods of breast cancer among female graduating students of Debre Tabor University. Methods Institution-based cross-sectional study was conducted from October 1 to December 15 at Debra-Tabor University female graduating class students. A multistage sampling technique was used. Data were collected with a self-administer questionnaire. The collected data were processed and analyzed with the computer using SPSS version 25 software. Descriptive statistics were used to describe the socio-demographic information of participants. Binary and multivariable logistic regression with an adjusted odds ratio (AOR) and 95% confidence interval (CI) was used to identify factors associated with the outcome variable. Statistical significance was stated at p < 0.05. Result; A total of 270 female students have participated in the study. The median age (±SD) was 24.63 years (±1.26). All of the students heard about breast cancer and early detection methods. About 206 (76.67% of the participants had good knowledge of breast self-examination. Mass media, health professionals, and friends in combination were the main source of information 172 (63.77%), only 110 (40.70%) of students performed a breast-self-examination and the rest did not perform it due to forgetting fullness and lack of knowledge. About 208 (77.1%) of the respondents respond family history is a risk factor for breast cancer. Being a health science student (AOR = 2.32; 95% CI: 2.12, 3.52), family history of breast problem (AOR = 3.41; 95% CI: 3.22, 8.33), and having a good level of knowledge (AOR = 1.83; 95% CI: 1.01, 5.68) were the factors associated with the practice of breast self-examination. Conclusion Most of the participants were unaware of the benefits, appropriate timing, and techniques of doing a breast self-examination. Health science students had better awareness & practice of breast self-examination than non-health science students. Trained health professionals must give focus on giving health information regarding risk factors of breast cancer and methods of early detection of breast cancer to the public & their clients.

Effectiveness of Internships as Pedagogical Practices in Promoting Employability Skills Amongst Graduating Students in Selected Social Science Degree Programmes in Zambia

<p style="text-align: justify;">To explore their role in enhancing graduate employability, the study investigated the effectiveness of student internships as pedagogical practices in promoting employability skills amongst graduating students in four Social Science Degree programmes of selected universities in Zambia. Qualitative and quantitative data were collected from 162 participants through the questionnaires and interview guides using a mixed-methods approach. The participants included different actors in the labour industry as critical informants; graduating students taking Social Science Degree Programmes; Lecturers, and Employers. The quantitative and qualitative data were analysed using the SPSS version 24 and Atlas. Ti. Version 8, respectively. This study employed the Human Capability Approach and Human Capital theories. Findings indicated that although internship practices were considered an essential component in the social science degree programmes for skills development, their effectiveness in promoting employability skills amongst graduating students varied from one programme to the other. The findings have implications on how universities and the labour industry could work together to design and implement internship experiences for students in social science degree programmes that are more effective in promoting the acquisition of employability skills in Zambia.</p>

Approaches for Building Information Systems for Monitoring the Realization of Students

The article is dedicated to the methodological and technological issues of building information systems for tracking the realization of graduating students. This is an important issue for the field of higher education, as it has a direct bearing on the quality of the higher education provided. The higher the quality of education is, the easier and more successful the realization of the students can be. In this way, the results of the student performance survey can be used as an indicator for the introduction of corrective policies. Based on a literature research, the study proposes a specially developed methodology consisting of five methods. Each of them is described, and from a software point of view the implementation of the last of them is the most complex. An indicative framework of three main stages and tasks in them is proposed, which allow the realization of the designed information system. In the empirical part of the research special attention is paid to the software implementation of the most complex of the proposed methods, and also the results of its application are presented. In conclusion, opportunities for improvement and development of the methodology are proposed.

Pre- and Early-Pandemic Graduating Students’ Perceptions at a United States Business School

Two separate samples of graduating business students completed online surveys in the Spring 2019 (pre-pandemic, n = 724) and Spring 2020 (early pandemic, n = 376). This research study explored changes in student grading assessment learning perceptions (GALP) between Spring of 2019 to Spring of 2020, as well as perceptions of video vault use, number of internships/co-ops completed, satisfaction with major, and satisfaction with business degree. With the abrupt change from face-to-face to all online classes in the middle of the Spring 2020 semester due to the pandemic, individual engagement GALP (e.g., attendance, participation) declined but video vault use increased. Reassuringly, other GALP scales as well as both satisfaction measures remained stable. Testing for changes in correlations from 2019 to 2020, using the four GALP scales, video vault use, and internships/co-ops completed as the independent variables and satisfaction with major and satisfaction with business degree as the dependent variables, there were several significant correlational changes. The correlation of video vault use to satisfaction with major increased from 2019 to 2020. Increased Individual Creative GALP &ndash; satisfaction with business degree, and Individual Engagement GALP &ndash; satisfaction with business degree correlations were also found. The positive Spring 2020 video vault use findings, and maintained GALP scale perceptions were at least partially due to the immediate online Zoom faculty training facilitated by the Business School Online and Digital Learning Department. However, there was a negative correlation from 2019 to 2020 in the internship/co-op completed &ndash; satisfaction with business degree. . Study limitations and future research issues with the continuing pandemic are discussed.

Clinical Teaching as a Challenge in Transforming the Nursing Profession in Estonia

The changes in European healthcare education, building on the Bologna Process, aimed at the integration of clinical work and teaching and promoted a holistic patient and learner-centred professional paradigm. The article, based on the findings of two qualitative studies (2017–2019), focuses on the transformation of the nursing profession in the context of the Estonian healthcare curriculum reform. Thematic written interviews accompanied by a drawing task were collected from clinical nurse teachers and graduating students. The data was analysed using hermeneutic content and comparative analysis. The findings showed that the students had internalised the patient-centred paradigm and integrated teaching into their clinical work, but their learning was hampered by the institutional atmosphere dominated by clinical values. Among the nurses, only the “ideal clinical teachers” had combined clinical work and teaching in their professional paradigm. The tensions in the clinical internship limit the attainment of the reformed profession.