Developing life skills: Perceptions of graduates of the adult, non-traditional business and management programs at Indiana Wesleyan University.

摘要

Problem. Indiana Wesleyan University teaches all of its adult courses using 10 skills as a foundation. This study determined the perceived attitudes of its graduates regarding the importance of and their relative progress in these 10 areas.; Method. A survey questionnaire was developed and a stratified random sample of graduates was surveyed. A two-way analysis of variance was used to analyze the differences and interactions among the graduates based on two variables: major and gender.; Results. Graduates perceived the following four skills as “very important”: Problem Solving, Oral Communication, Writing Effectively, and Ethics. Six skills were perceived as “important”: Teamwork, Lifelong Learning, Critical Thinking, Reading Materials, and Christian World View. Graduates further perceived themselves as evidencing “considerable progress” in the following eight skills: Teamwork, Writing Effectively, Oral Communication, Problem Solving, Lifelong Learning, Critical Thinking, Information Literacy, and Ethics, and “some progress” in the remaining two skills: Reading Materials and Christian World View.; Conclusions. While considered to be important, the skill of the Christian World View was perceived by graduates as the least important of the skills. Graduates felt that although they evidenced some progress, the Christian World View skill was perceived as evidencing the least amount of development. Problem Solving and Oral Communication skills were perceived as the most important skills, and Teamwork was perceived by graduates as the skill evidencing the most progress.