Master’s Thesis in Computer Science by Lars Jørgen Fredheim at NTNU

Mobile Application for Graduate Employability Skills – A proof of concept

The paper is published in INTED Proceedings 2022- ISBN: 978-84-09-37758-9.

Authors: 

A. Abbas, M. Iqbal, L. Boyle, G. Baxter1, A. Williams, S.A. Petersen, E.Topolewska-Siedzik., A. Jimoyiannis, P. Tsiotakis4, G. Scott

Partner Universities:

University of the West of Scotland (UNITED KINGDOM), Norwegian University of Science and Technology (NORWAY), Uniwersytet Kardynała Stefana Wyszyńskiego w Warszawie (POLAND), University of Peloponnese (GREECE)

Abstract

Teaching graduate employability skills (GES) is a complex task that needs to be considered from the higher education (HE), employer, policy, and student perspectives. This 4- European countries partnership research has developed a digital application (the GES-App) to assist higher education students in thinking more actively about their employability skills, and supporting them to be better prepared for employers. The app allows the students to plan, record and evidence the acquisition and development of graduate employability skills (GES) throughout their university journey. As “digital natives” who have been brought up with digital technology and embrace universal smartphone use, an app-based approach to GES development is highly favourable. Drawing upon the elements of the self-determined learning model of instruction (SDLMI), the GES-App uses motivational, interactive exercises and achievable goal-based tasks, to induce a sense of fun in users and develop self-actualization patterns that will help to raise awareness of employability issues.

Graduate Employability Skills Development through Reflection and Self-assessment Using a Mobile App

The paper is published in the proceedings of the International Conference e-Society and Mobile Learning 12 – 14 march 2022- ISBN: 978-989-8704-38-2

Authors:

Maria Iqbal, Lars Jørgen Fredheim, Hege Annette Olstad, Aisha Abbas and Sobah Abbas Petersen

Abstract

As university students’ journey through their studies, their minds are fixed on a common end goal, that of graduating with flying colours and landing their dream job. They aim for achieving the top grades and focus on their studies, assignments, and exams. In this journey, the students often overlook or underestimate the importance of developing some skills that employers may consider important for their jobs. In this paper, we present a prototype of a mobile application that stimulates university students to reflect upon their experiences and assess the skills they may develop that would help them towards their dream job. The mobile application is designed to support students to recognize employability skills, conduct a self-assessment of their skills, document their skills in terms of the experiences that contributed to the development of the skills and to provide learning resources for improving skills. This work is conducted within the EU ERASMUS+ program.

Paper to be presented at Edulearn22 Conference / Abstract

DEVELOPMENT OF GRADUATE EMPLOYABILITY SKILLS WITH REGARDS TO DREAM JOB USING MOBILE APP

The educational journey of every student in the university is initiated with the ambition to achieve the best possible role in the field of their interest, which not only become their ultimate goal and what we call a “dream job”. To accomplish this target, students plan their academic journey so that they can achieve the best possible grades in academic assessments, to exhibit their knowledge and expertise within their field. The academic journey of students not only furnishes them with domain knowledge of the field but also different academic tasks like presentations, projects, workshops, group work etc also aims to equip students with another set of skills known as employability skills among employers. However, in the limelight of gaining domain-specific skills, the employability skills either remain unacknowledged or underdeveloped. It is seldomly realized that the lack of these employability skills sometimes becomes a barrier for students to achieve their dream job, despite being good at domain-specific skills.

In this paper, we aim to present a mobile application prototype that is intended to help students acknowledge the presence of these skills through the self-reflection process on their experiences and support students to understand the need and requirements of their dream job. Facilitating the self-reflection process of the student through the app would enable them to recognize what skills they have, and the dream job concept designed in the app would enable the students to analyse their present skills profile with the skill profile required for their dream job. The comparison of the two skill profiles would enable students to realize the skill gap that aims to stimulate skill development behaviour among them. The realization of the need for skill development is inevitable for motivating students to learn more. The learning resources integrated within the app support students’ skill development to achieve their dream job.

This project is supported by the ERASMUS+ program.