Breve historia sobre el concepto de energía

In the United States Hafer and Hoth (1981) and Holland and Herron (1982) examined selection criteria. Both studies required managers and students to rank 26 job selection attributes and found differences between employer and student responses. Neither study had a cultural investigative component. Peppas, Peppas and Jin (1999) furthered the research by comparing the importance of

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different job selection criteria to individuals from different cultures. To determine the existence of any cultural difference, Chinese and Anglo-Americans from public and private sectors in the US were surveyed about the importance of 26 job selection attributes. Later, Peppas and Yu (2005) sampled Chinese university students in the US on the importance of certain job candidate attributes. The measurement instrument included a modified list of Hafer and Hoth‘s (1981) 26 attributes and respondents indicated on a Likert scale their perceived importance of each attribute for the hiring process. The student and employer data sets were compared statistically. Parametric and non- parametric tests were conducted to confirm the results. The rankings are given in Chapter Two; there are more differences than similarities between the rankings of the criteria by the three respondent groups.

6.1.4 Australia

Research in Australia used similar methods to those presented above. Some studies, such as Candy and Crebert (1991) endeavoured to document the differences between higher education and workplace requirements (See Chapter Two for their summary table). Building on Szanton‘s ten cultural

differences between academic, public and private institutions, and based on other literature, they developed a set of extreme statements about the way people learn and behave in academia and the workplace. They represented the differences as factual statements rather than as dimensions on a continuum (Candy & Crebert 1991, pp. 577-578).

In another study the Australian Department of Education Training and Youth Affairs (AC Nielson 2000) examined employer satisfaction and dissatisfaction with the skills of new graduates entering the labour market. It included quantitative data collection (mail survey, telephone recruitment screening followed by a self-completion mail-return questionnaire) and qualitative research (focus groups and in-depth interviews) mostly with Human Resource managers, screened to ensure they had recruited within the past two years, but also with some graduates. Over 1000 completed surveys were coded and weighted in terms of size and industry. The research tools and methods enabled skills important to employers to be identified, compared to skills possessed by the new graduates. The findings relating to skill deficiencies are discussed in Chapter Two, but the research also found that university graduates performed better than TAFE graduates and larger businesses rated their new graduates more highly than smaller businesses.

Whitefield‘s (2003) research on skills of accounting students used content analysis and then Likert scales to determine the degree to which the curriculum developed personal and interpersonal skills. Her approach examined the themes of subject-level documents to determine whether the skills were being developed implicitly or explicitly. Her definition of ‗explicit content‘ referred to actual words and terms used in the documents and ‗implicit content‘ for inferences drawn from the context, which

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required a value judgement (See Chapter Two which discusses Whitefield‘s explicit content overlayed with skills). These findings were cross referenced with employer perceptions of how the same skills were displayed by graduates in the workplace. Finally employers were interviewed and asked to rank the skills. Chang and Tharenou (2004) effectively used content analysis to identify five competencies needed to manage a multicultural workforce and 27 sub-themes. They believed that their data pool of 20 managers which is not dissimilar to that of this research limited the validity and generalisability.

Bath, Smith, Stein and Swann (2004, p. 314) conducted a case study of student and lecturer perceptions of graduate attribute development in three particular subjects of a course. They first reviewed a mapping process which, while making explicit ―to students, teachers, management and other stakeholders the existing support and opportunities for the development of the institution‘s espoused graduate attributes‖, did not ensure an alignment between what is taught, experienced and learnt. They argue that the action research cycle adopted by one school within the University of Queensland ―is a validation process that preserves the integrity of curriculum design for discipline- nuanced generic skill development, but which goes beyond the mapping of espoused and enacted development opportunities across the curriculum‖ (Bath et al 2004, p. 315). The survey tool, administered at the end of semester focused on the university‘s graduate attributes; it used a Likert scale and open-ended questions to ―review the curriculum in order to ascertain whether the

perceptions of students in terms of development of graduate attributes was similar to that of the course coordinator for individual courses‖ (Bath et al. 2004, p. 320). Both the student and teacher versions of the survey were identical, with the leading questions rephrased to suit the participants‘ frame of reference. The mean student and teacher rating for each item were then compared. While this study did not investigate any formal subject based assessment of graduate attributes,

The strength of using student perceptions is that it captures developments that were not intended by the curriculum, and expected or espoused by the teachers. Further, one would have either to accept perceptual measures for teachers' expectations of curriculum outcomes, or develop objective measures for these as well, and it is hard to see how this could be done in a manner more efficient and effective than simply surveying individual teachers for their perceptions (Bath et al. 2004, pp. 325-326).

The concept of an action research cycle for continuous improvement fits with adaptive theory which asserts that theory and research should be interdependent. Furthermore, theory construction should be ―evolving and generative‖ (Bessant & Francis 2005, p. 93) which aligns with the systematic review and reflection stage of action research, coming after the ‗doing‘ and before the ‗improving‘. At some point after a complete cycle, it can be determined whether extant theories are being adapted or

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theories were not challenged in a fundamental way but gaps were found and the ways in which theories were configured for use changed markedly‖. They were able to reach this conclusion having explicitly mapped the orientating theories before intervention.

McKeown (2006, p. 5) examined both employment expectations and the process of finding

employment. The study draws on data from two sets of interviews: the first with forty five graduate students and the second with five university career centres (UCCs) based in Melbourne, Australia, that gathered information around three research questions:

1. University graduates – what are their expectations of employment after graduation and

how do they pursue this employment?

2. Employers – what are their expectations of graduates?

3. University career centres (UCCs) – what job search assistance do they offer graduates and

which are the most helpful to graduates in the job seeking process.

To investigate the first two questions most survey items came from the widely used and validated Australian Graduate Destination Survey 2002 and 2003 but were supplemented by questions from other surveys. Data from the interviews was organised and analysed thematically. Barrie (2006) however argues that interview data can be very diverse and may be better understood if viewed phenomenologically. The 15 academics he interviewed from different disciplines about their conceptions of the generic graduate attributes presented quite different views of graduate attributes. He suggests ―From the phenomenographic perspective individuals come to experience the world in these qualitatively different ways, in part as a result of the previous experiences they bring to any situation‖ (Barrie 2006, p. 234). The disciplinary background of academics could account for the range of understandings of the phenomenon of graduate attributes. The model that emerged from a phenomenological analysis which allowed for pooling the data, then identifying statements relevant to the phenomenon, followed by grouping and categorising the experiences contained ―Four increasingly complex, qualitatively distinct understandings or categories of description‖ (Barrie 2006, pp. 223-4). A second level of analysis looked at the variation between respondent‘s personal conceptualisations of graduate attributes. The impact of diverse perspectives at an institutional level is that ―uptake and implementation of graduate attributes curriculum initiatives has been variable‖ (Barrie 2006, p. 235) but ―this inconsistency is understandable, particularly given the influence of individual teachers‘ understandings of the intended course and degree outcomes on what is actually taught and assessed in university courses‖ (Barrie 2006, p. 234).

Graduate Careers Australia collects data annually via the Course Experience Questionnaire (CEQ) and Graduate Destination Survey (GDS). These two tools have been refined to ensure that the

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resulting data is more meaningful and accurate, and the methods standardised and scripted so that they can be administered systematically by phone, email or hardcopy. Hence the data collected is now regarded as reliable and valid and can be analysed by year as well as over a period of years. The CEQ asks graduates to respond to six statements:

The course helped me develop my ability to work as a team member The course sharpened my analytic skills

The course developed my problem-solving skills

The course improved my skills in written communication

As a result of my course, I feel confident about tackling unfamiliar problems

My course helped me to develop the ability to plan my own work (Graduate Careers Australia 2006, p. 240).

To inform the goals of the courses, employers of graduates are asked to prioritise their selection criteria for employing new graduates.