Dissertations and Theses @ UNI
Availability
Open Access Thesis
Keywords
Community college students; Soft skills; Academic theses;
Abstract
Today's job market is increasingly competitive and businesses require job candidates to not only have degree-program expertise, but possess other general workplace skills as well. This poses a unique challenge for community colleges because instructors have just two years or less to prepare students for the workforce. They need to ensure that all career related material is taught as well as other workplace skills such as oral and written communication. The purpose of this study was to identify workplace skills, specifically those related to communication, desired by companies that hire community college graduates and explore a possible need to expand the role of instructors in providing students with a balance of both degree-program expertise and the opportunity to develop workplace communication skills. The emphasis of this study was on oral and written communication with special attention to three subcategories of each. The oral communication portion included interpersonal, teamwork, and face-to-face and telephone communication. The written communication portion included communicating through technology, grammatically correct documents, and the willingness of entry-level employees to write. A preliminary study was completed gathering data from face-to-face interviews, a focus group, and a panel discussion conducted at a community college career fair. The data was then analyzed and used to create a questionnaire that was presented to Eastern Iowa human resource professionals. The survey method was chosen due to advantages such as the respondents could remain anonymous and accuracy is increased because participants record their own data. Thirty-two human resource professionals participated in the study. Results from the preliminary study indicated that oral and written communication skills are highly valued by companies that hire community college graduates, but attitude also plays a central role. This information was reinforced after analyzing the results from the questionnaire, which also indicated that developed oral and written communication skills are a necessary part of workplace success as well as having a good attitude. The data supports that community colleges must provide students with the opportunity to practice workplace communication skills to ensure they graduate with both degree-program expertise and essential communication skills to compete in the job market.
Year of Submission
2009
Degree Name
Master of Arts
Department
Department of Communication Studies
First Advisor
Tom Hall
Second Advisor
Melissa Beall
Third Advisor
April Chatham-Carpenter
Date Original
2009
Object Description
1 PDF file (84 leaves)
Copyright
©2009 Sarah R. Baker
Language
en
File Format
application/pdf
Recommended Citation
Baker, Sarah R., "Identifying Communication Skills Necessary for Two-Year College Graduates to Succeed in the Changing and Competitive Workplace" (2009). Dissertations and Theses @ UNI. 1977.
https://scholarworks.uni.edu/etd/1977
Comments
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