Saturday, 27 March 2010: 10:00
Academic skills are those skills that allow tertiary education students to be successful in their studies. Many of these skills sit on a range of graduate skills, which let university students to be successful during their working life. The main objective of this paper is to explore the role of academic skills on university students’ stress, academic performance, and their career. The author conducted a study examining perceived enabling academic skills and barriers to a successful career in economic and business studies. The analysis provides important evidence about the ways that absence of academic skills leads students to stress, poor grades, and weak working life.
The data contain information on qualified young men/women’s discoveries of academic skills, on theirown stress evaluation, on their exams and career goals. The data came from a questionnaire designed for this case, and from a semi-structured interview. The sampling frame includes the graduated students in 2007, from all departments of two universities: the University of Macedonia Economic and Social Sciences (UMES) and the Athens University of Economics and Business (AUEB). A proportionate stratified random sample of 312 graduates, 166 females and 146 males, was selected. The strata formation was based on university department and gender. The analysis is based mainly on a recursive structural equation model, which links learning skills, academic writing skills, reading and critical thinking skills, academic speaking skills and notes taking skills with stress (which is due to lack of them) marks and job index.
The results show that lack of academic skills, which are not in a systematic way developed and vary among students, influences negatively and significantly young males and females peace of mind, which is necessary for better academic and job performance. Our analysis shows that lack of academic speaking skills is occasionally responsible for severe stress and consequently low academic and job performance. Young females seem to be more stressed than males, when they speak in a lecture room about a topic they have worked on. Lack of reading and critical thinking skills leads students to memorize what they read; this wrong way of studying gives students frequently a severe stress and very poor academic and job performance.
An important implication of our results is that the Greek educational system is in need of reform in key skills development similar to those proposed for Great Britain by the Higher Education Quality Council (1995, 1996). Apart from that, there is a need of an Academic Skills Programme, which will be open to every enrolled student at these two Universities. This programme will be set up to enable all students to acquire and thus, enhancing the skills needed to succeed in their studies and career.
The data contain information on qualified young men/women’s discoveries of academic skills, on theirown stress evaluation, on their exams and career goals. The data came from a questionnaire designed for this case, and from a semi-structured interview. The sampling frame includes the graduated students in 2007, from all departments of two universities: the University of Macedonia Economic and Social Sciences (UMES) and the Athens University of Economics and Business (AUEB). A proportionate stratified random sample of 312 graduates, 166 females and 146 males, was selected. The strata formation was based on university department and gender. The analysis is based mainly on a recursive structural equation model, which links learning skills, academic writing skills, reading and critical thinking skills, academic speaking skills and notes taking skills with stress (which is due to lack of them) marks and job index.
The results show that lack of academic skills, which are not in a systematic way developed and vary among students, influences negatively and significantly young males and females peace of mind, which is necessary for better academic and job performance. Our analysis shows that lack of academic speaking skills is occasionally responsible for severe stress and consequently low academic and job performance. Young females seem to be more stressed than males, when they speak in a lecture room about a topic they have worked on. Lack of reading and critical thinking skills leads students to memorize what they read; this wrong way of studying gives students frequently a severe stress and very poor academic and job performance.
An important implication of our results is that the Greek educational system is in need of reform in key skills development similar to those proposed for Great Britain by the Higher Education Quality Council (1995, 1996). Apart from that, there is a need of an Academic Skills Programme, which will be open to every enrolled student at these two Universities. This programme will be set up to enable all students to acquire and thus, enhancing the skills needed to succeed in their studies and career.