Aligning Expectation and Reality About IT Career Preparation: Perception of Job Competencies by Students, New Professionals, and Employers

Lee, Jisue; Spears, Laura; Ambapavaru, Chandrahasa Reddy; Ma, Jinxuan; Hollister, Jonathan M.; Mardis, Marcia A.; McClure, Charles R.

doi:10.2139/ssrn.2485678

Cited by 2 publications

(3 citation statements)

References 9 publications

Supporting

Mentioning

Contrasting

Order By: Relevance

“…Through internships, students also have the opportunity to develop career goals and to determine if they feel well suited to a particular job before they enter the workforce, therefore becoming more employable once they graduate (Shoenfelt et al, 2013;Vairis et al, 2013). Lee et al (2014) also found that new IT professionals perceive internship experience as highly valuable when entering the workforce.…”

Section: Internshipsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Work-integrated learning (WIL) in information technology

Jones

Mardis

McClure

et al. 2017

HESWBL

Self Cite

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

Purpose-The purpose of this paper is to analyze 86 information technology (IT) internship postings to discern the extent to which the intended outcomes matched professional standards for four-year IT programs. Design/methodology/approach-The researchers text mined specified skills from 86 internship postings and compared them to the competencies outlined in the ACM/IEEE Body of Knowledge. Findings-Results indicated that students can expect to gain experience and exposure to both technical and general competencies. Though research and policy relating to technical fields have emphasized professional competencies such as teamwork, communication, and professionalism, this analysis suggested that the internship postings greatly emphasized technical skills at the expense of general competencies. Research limitations/implications-The most frequently occurring competencies suggest future research opportunities for considering contextual factors of internship sites. The researchers conclude with implications for using text mining as a tool for comparing internship intent vs outcomes as well as suggestions for policies, standards, and curricula worthy of further exploration. Originality/value-Employers, educators, and professionals agree that internships offer a promising means to link course content and practical workplace skills, especially in technical fields like IT. However, less clear are the ingredients of effective IT internships.

show abstract

Section: Internshipsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Work-integrated learning (WIL) in information technology

Jones

Mardis

McClure

et al. 2017

HESWBL

Self Cite

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

show abstract

“…This Chasm has been demonstrated in a range of industries include dietetics (Gilmore et al. , 1997), information technology (Lee et al. , 2014), hospitality (Tesone and Ricci, 2005) and public relations (Shaw, 2017).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 97%

“…This has been referred to as the "Capability-Competency Chasm" (Ward et al, 2021). This Chasm has been demonstrated in a range of industries include dietetics (Gilmore et al, 1997), information technology (Lee et al, 2014), hospitality (Tesone and Ricci, 2005) and public relations (Shaw, 2017). Further, the assumption that an individual with an appropriate academic degree has the ability to perform a job or has met all the competencies required for a job may be unwarranted (Ward et al, 2021;Oraison et al, 2019), which has resulted in over 7,000 citations between 2010 and 2021 from the top ten countries on the issue of curriculum/jobs alignment (Aljohani et al, 2022).…”

mentioning

confidence: 99%

Entrustable professional activities: a model for job activity competency framework with microcredentials

Ma¹,

Cate

2023

IJILT

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

PurposeJob competency frameworks are based on the listing skills required for a job. The assumption is that if a candidate is presumed to have the skills, then the candidate should be able to do the job. Thus, employers hope to identify prospective employees having the required skills. However, this may differ from knowing whether the employee is ready to be trusted to do the job activities with minimal or no supervision. The authors pose the question how employers might know about the capability of prospective employees to perform the job activities for which the employees are being hired.Design/methodology/approachIn health professions education, a job activity-based framework has been developed called “entrustable professional activities” (EPAs, activities to be entrusted). This paper reviews the job activity framework and EPAs used in medical education, considering how this might support preparation for work in other sectors of the labor market.FindingsThe authors describe the EPA framework, some implementation issues and how EPAs lead to a type of microcredential being awarded to individuals as the individuals demonstrate that the individuals can be entrusted with specific job activities.Originality/valueThe focus of this paper is to demonstrate that a medical education model could potentially be adopted by other industries to provide employers with information regarding the ability of a prospective employee in performing the job activities required. Such an approach would address employer's concerns about the job readiness of potential employees.

show abstract

Aligning Expectation and Reality About IT Career Preparation: Perception of Job Competencies by Students, New Professionals, and Employers

Cited by 2 publications

References 9 publications

Work-integrated learning (WIL) in information technology

Work-integrated learning (WIL) in information technology

Entrustable professional activities: a model for job activity competency framework with microcredentials

Contact Info

Product

Resources

About