Full Terms & Conditions of access and use can be found at
http://www.tandfonline.com/action/journalInformation?journalCode=vjeb20
Download by: [Universitas Maritim Raja Ali Haji], [UNIVERSITAS MARITIM RAJA ALI HAJI Date: 12 January 2016, At: 17:59
Journal of Education for Business
ISSN: 0883-2323 (Print) 1940-3356 (Online) Journal homepage: http://www.tandfonline.com/loi/vjeb20
Competencies of Undergraduate Business
Students
Jeffrey Berman & Leah Ritchie
To cite this article: Jeffrey Berman & Leah Ritchie (2006) Competencies of Undergraduate Business Students, Journal of Education for Business, 81:4, 205-209, DOI: 10.3200/ JOEB.81.4.205-209
To link to this article: http://dx.doi.org/10.3200/JOEB.81.4.205-209
Published online: 07 Aug 2010.
Submit your article to this journal
Article views: 64
View related articles
ABSTRACT. The idea that one’s
com-petencies are as important as one’s
qualifi-cations has gained acceptance in both
busi-ness and academia. Busibusi-ness organizations
have developed sophisticated management
systems around employee competence.
There are education assessment tools that
help ascertain students’ competencies. In
this study, the authors investigated one such
tool entitled Making the Match: Base
Com-petencies and Skill Sets. The authors
con-ducted the study to develop an
understand-ing of the sources of student competence
exclusive of the college curriculum. The
authors found significant correlations
between student personal characteristics,
student background characteristics, and
their work-related competencies.
Copyright © 2006 Heldref Publications
he concept of competence, long a staple in education, has also become a standard for excellence in business. In business, competencies are used for employee selection, the basis for compensation, performance mea-surement, training needs assessment, training outcomes assessment, and strategic planning. There are corre-sponding programs in higher education where students’ competencies are assessed and students are given feedback to guide them in their development. There are efforts to build competency development into the curriculum as well. With regard to college students, an important issue is the level of work-related competence students have devel-oped prior to graduation based on their upbringing and their work experience. In the case of business students, many are competent because their presence in a business education program is based on self-selection. As part of their prepa-ration for a business career, students gain work experience. In addition, many business students come from family backgrounds from which they have gained an understanding of business.
In this study, we attempted to ascer-tain how students’ competencies are linked to their personal characteristics and to their background characteristics. An understanding of these links would inform the conversation about curricu-lum development.
Competencies
Evers, Rush, and Berdrow (1998) were concerned with the match between what students learn in college programs and what they need to know and be able to do in the workplace. They believed that having knowledge alone is not suf-ficient in today’s society; students need to adapt to change and to apply their knowledge to solving problems. Hence, Evers et al. believed that education should impart skills and competencies.
A first step in the development of a normative measure of student compe-tence was the development of a set of competencies that were universal enough so that it could be said that all
college graduates should have them regardless of their field of study. Evers et al. (1998) developed a set of base competencies that they believed every
college graduate should possess; they derived these base competencies from an empirical study. As part of their study, they developed a measurement instrument. Their study contains quanti-tative results from 1,610 undergraduates and graduates of five universities in which they used the measurement instrument entitled Making the Match: Base Competencies and Skill Sets. The names of the four base competency scales they developed were: (a) ing self, (b) communicating, (c) manag-ing people and tasks, and (d) managmanag-ing
Competencies of Undergraduate Business
Students
JEFFREY BERMAN LEAH RITCHIE
SALEM STATE COLLEGE SALEM, MASSACHUSETTS
T
respond, so they are likely to respond honestly.
Grade Point Average (GPA)
GPA is a familiar statistic. College GPA is strongly related to a student’s academic performance in high school. In college, it differentiates between stu-dents’ performance across the entire range of their coursework. In addition, its significance goes beyond an individ-ual’s record of academic performance. GPA has been shown to predict two important work outcomes—perfor-mance ratings and training outcomes.
GPA is a measure of human capital. The theory of human capital was creat-ed by economists’ inquiry into the role of the human factor in economic growth. Education and training are considered investments that people make in their productive capability and are the most important investments in human capital. Many studies have shown that high school and college education in the United States greatly raise a person’s income, even after
net-ting out direct and indirect costs of schooling, and even after adjusting for the fact that people with more educa-tion tend to have higher IQs and better educated and richer parents than peo-ple do with lower IQs.
Today, GPA is a much-maligned measure because of the phenomenon of grade inflation. Variations in GPA at the high school level are leveled out by col-lege entrance examinations. However, there are pressures to downplay these examinations because of their cultural unfairness. It will be a long time before a replacement for the SAT exam can demonstrate the same relationship to college performance that the SAT has achieved. This trend is disturbing. If college GPA loses credibility, there is no fallback measure. College grades are often the last objective performance report to occur before a student’s entry into the permanent workforce. At this point, there is no reason to believe that college GPA has lost its meaning in terms of ranking students’ academic performance.
innovation and change. In general, stu-dents and graduates consistently rate themselves higher in skills in the man-aging self and communicating base competencies and lower in managing people and tasks and mobilizing innova-tion and change base competencies.
Biographical Data
We selected biographical data (bio-data) as a means of understanding how students acquire competence outside of the curriculum. Bio-data are defined as information concerning an individual’s personal life history and experience. Bio-data refer to the various sorts of informa-tion individuals are frequently required to provide when writing their curriculum vitae (résumés), filling out application forms for jobs, and answering questions during interviews. One characteristic of bio-data that is little challenged is their ability to predict a variety of work-related criteria. Bio-data tend to be atheoretical. If anything, theory flows from measure-ment in the sense that people try to derive a theory to explain their results. What is most significant is that
bio-data are a reflection of the past behavior of an individual. There is a strong belief among employment selection experts that past behavior is the best predictor of future behavior. By using bio-data to validate out-come assessment mea-sures, one can learn something about their meaning beyond their face validity. Bio-data correlates of competency measures can be viewed as past behavior, but causality is not implied. Of course, the relation-ship of bio-data to job performance must be demonstrated as well.
The nature of bio-data research is that the bio-graphical items are diffi-cult for respondents to fake. They cannot easily determine the socially desirable direction to
TABLE 1. Correlation Matrix for Students’ Characteristics and Competencies and the Four Factors of the Scale “Making the Match: Base Competencies and Skills” (Evers, Rush, & Berman, 1998)
Variable M SD 1 2 3 4 5
1. Hours worked per week 24.3 10.5 1.0
2. SAT mathematics score 5.0a 1.9 .14 1.0
3. SAT verbal score 4.7a 1.7 .18* .67* 1.0
4. Rank in high school class 3.6a 1.2 .08 .22** .25** 1.0
5. Proximity to campus .22a .42 –.21** .17* .14 .04 1.0
6. Age of first month-long trip
away from home 2.5a 1.2 .09 .17* .07 .03 .08
11. Competitiveness 1.7a .68 –.03 –.02 –.04 –.09 .01
12. Managing Self 4.0a .58 –.09 –.10 –.07 .17* .26**
13. Communicating 4.0a .62 –.14 –.07 .08 .12 .16*
14. Managing Others 3.9a .58 –.03 –.16* –.01 .12 .13
15. Managing Change 3.7a .59 –.06 –.12 –.01 .08 .13
16. Grade Point Average 2.79 .53 –.21* .19* .21* .31** .07
aMean scores represent responses to scales, not literal values associated with the variable. The number of subjects for each variable in the correlation analysis follows: hours worked per week,N= 161; SAT mathematics score,N= 149; SAT ver-bal score,N= 148; rank in high school class,N= 184; proximity to college campus,N= 193; age first month away from home,N= 193; age first time away from home,N= 191; per cent of high school class attending college,N= 183; father attended college,N= 193; risk preference,N= 193; competitiveness,N= 192; Managing Self,N= 192; Communicating, N= 192; Managing Others,N= 189; Managing Change,N= 192; college grade point average,N= 156.
*p< .05. **p< .01.
Research Proposition
We proposed that relationships exist between student personal characteris-tics, student background characterischaracteris-tics, and their self-perceived competencies. Student personal characteristics refer to intelligence and personality. Student background characteristics refer to upbringing, interests and activities, and work experience.
METHOD
We collected the bio-data in the con-text of an outcome assessment study conducted among juniors and seniors of the school of business at Salem State College, Salem, Massachusetts, in 2002. We collected the data by means of a paper and pencil questionnaire. We included only day students of the col-lege in the data analysis. These students represent 77% of the participants. Day students attend the college full time, whereas nontraditional students (23% of the students who participated in the study) attend part time. The results of
this analysis will have relevance for pol-icy decisions that relate to full-time stu-dents.
On the survey, students were required to rate their competencies (from very lowto very high) on 17 scales. The sur-vey instrument, developed by Evers et al. (1998), was entitled Making the Match: Base Competencies and Skill Sets. The instrument measures 17 skills included in four factors. Factor 1, Man-aging Self, consisted of the following items: (a) learning, (b) personal organi-zation and time management, (c) per-sonal strengths, and (d) problem solving and analytical skills. Factor 2, Commu-nicating, consisted of (a) interpersonal, (b) listening, (c) oral communication, and (d) written communication items. Factor 3, Managing People and Tasks (i.e., managing others), consisted of the following items: (a) decision making, (b) leadership or influence, (c) risk-taking, (d) conflict management, and (e) planning and organizing. Factor 4, Mobilizing Innovation and Change (i.e., managing change), consisted of items
measuring (a) visioning; (b) coordinat-ing; (c) ability to conceptualize; and (d) creativity, innovation, and change.
To assess the homogeneity of these factors, we conducted a reliability analysis. We analyzed the data collected in the present study; Cronbach’s alpha for each of the factors was as follows: Managing Self, α = .70;
Communicat-ing, α = .72; Managing People and
Tasks (managing others), α = .82;
Mobilizing Innovation and Change (managing change),α= .76.
We asked students to complete a bio-graphical index, which included demo-graphic information. Other questions were college entrance examination scores, rank in class in high school, family issues of the adolescent years, extracurricular activities in high school and college, and employment history. We queried students about their inter-ests, extracurricular activities, work experience, family background, and sat-isfaction with their educational experi-ence. We obtained college GPA from college records.
RESULTS
We investigated the research proposition by means of correlation analysis. We constructed a correlation matrix to show some of the rela-tionships. In the matrix, we included 13 measures of personal characteristics of students and student competencies. We used the Pearson correlation coefficient with the fol-lowing variables: Hours worked per week; SAT mathematics score; SAT verbal score; rank in high school class; proximity to college campus; age first month away from home; age first time more than 100 miles away from home; percentage of high school class attending college; risk preference; competitiveness; manag-ing self; communicatmanag-ing;
6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16
managing others; managing change; and college GPA. We used point biserial cor-relation with proximity of residence to Salem State College and student’s father attended college. The number of partici-pants in the analysis was not uniform for each variable. Because some students did not remember SAT scores, numbers are lower for these items. Table 1 shows the correlations we obtained.
Four personal characteristics corre-lated with the Managing Self factor. There was a correlation of r= .26 (p< .01) between proximity to the college and Managing Self, indicating that stu-dents living on campus or on their own in an apartment are more independent than students living at home and com-muting to college. There was a correla-tion of r= .23 (p< .01) between stu-dent’s father has a college degree and Managing Self, suggesting that stu-dents whose fathers graduated from college have a different perspective than those students whose fathers were not college graduates. There was also a correlation of r= .17 (p< .05) between students’ high school class rank and Managing Self and a correlation of r= .23 (p< .01) between college GPA and Managing Self.
Three personal characteristics corre-lated with Managing Change. The first was age of first month-long trip away from home (r= .18,p< .05). Trips taken at a younger age lead to a perception of better ability to manage change, and travel at a young age also gives students coping skills, which may explain the correlation. The second characteristic that correlated with managing change was age of first trip of more than 100 miles alone (r = .16, p < .05). The younger the students were at the time of the trip, the better they perceived them-selves at Managing Change. The last characteristic that correlated with Man-aging Change was preference for taking risks (r= −.15,p< .05). Students who
were risk averse as teenagers were more likely to view themselves as competent at managing change.
Four personal characteristics corre-lated with Managing Others. There was a correlation of r = .19 (p < .05) between a student’s father graduating from college and managing others, indicating that whether a student’s
father graduated from college had an influence on the student’s perceived managerial skill. Students whose fathers graduated from college specifi-cally had greater perceived people man-agement skills. Also, there was a corre-lation between the percentage of students’ high school classes going to college and Managing Others (r= .19,
p< .05). Students who graduated from high schools that sent a larger propor-tion of students to college had higher perceived people management skills than did students graduating from high schools that sent fewer graduates to col-lege, which is a reflection of the inter-personal skills acquired during the high school experience. In addition, there was a correlation of r = .18 (p < .05) between students’ ages during their first month-long trip away from home and Managing Others. The younger the stu-dents were at the time of the trip, the better they perceived themselves at managing others.
There was one correlation between bio-data and Communicating. Proximi-ty to Salem State College correlated with perceived competence in commu-nication skills (r= .16,p< .05).
Other bio-data measures did not show any relationship with the study criteria. Those measures were (a) whether a student’s mother graduated from college; (b) whether students agreed with the ideas presented to them in college lectures; (c) the source of a student’s spending money in high school; (d) the hours a student worked on a part-time job in high school; (e) the age at which the student first earned money; (f) the number of older siblings the student had; (g) the number of younger siblings the student had; (h) whether a student was a member of the armed forces; (i) the number of hours of physical exercise a student had as a teenager; (j) the leadership positions the student held in high school; (k) whether a student worked during sum-mer vacations in high school; (l) the age at which a student graduated from high school; (m) leadership positions that the student held in college; (n) whether a student was included in family activi-ties as a teenager; and (o) a student’s preferred level of competitiveness as a teenager.
DISCUSSION
With regard to the issue of common method variance, there was little over-lap between bio-data measures and the perceived competency scales. We con-sidered bio-data difficult for respon-dents to fake because they do not know in which direction to fake. We obtained the competency measures by means of Likert scales. These scales were methodologically very different from the bio-data questions used in the study.
We addressed the sources of the stu-dents’ competence by the correlations we discovered in this study. The results indicate that competence is acquired partially as a result of personal charac-teristics and experiences outside of the school environment. The items that were most correlated with students’ self-perceived competence were: (a) father’s educational background; (b) rank in high school class; (c) GPA; (d) quality of high school; (e) independence as a teenager; and (f) boarding versus commuting sta-tus. However, the results do not indicate causality because they are based on cor-relations. The specific relationships between bio-data measures and compe-tency measures could not have been pre-dicted. However, if they are replicated they will be very credible indicators of the relationship of personal characteris-tics and background characterischaracteris-tics to students’ competencies.
Using outcome assessment data to inform faculty decision making is a cur-rent topic of interest. On December 28, 2000, The Boston Globe stated that “a recent national report on higher educa-tion decried the lack of educaeduca-tional per-formance statistics for college students” (Abel, p. B1). In that article, Bob Zem-sky of the University of Pennsylvania Institute of Research on Higher Educa-tion stated, “The quest for reliable out-come measure has beout-come something of a holy grail for education researchers” and Arthur Levine, President of Colum-bia Teachers College, claimed, “We are spending billions and billions on higher education, but we don’t know what stu-dents are learning or how much they’re learning” (Abel, p. B1). In The National Education Association Advocate(2001) Martha Stassen and Mary Deane Sor-cinelli of the University of
setts, Amherst, said, “Our offices of Institutional Assessment and Faculty Development have been working with faculty to identify ways to make assess-ment actually useful in informing the teaching and learning enterprise.” They believed that the systematic collection and analysis of information to improve student learning is part of that process. Our study is a step in the direction of
providing concrete data on outcomes for the purpose of informing debate on improvement of the teaching and learn-ing process.
NOTE
Correspondence concerning this article should be addressed to Jeffrey Berman, Professor, Department of Management, School of Business, Salem State College, 352 Lafayette Street, Salem, Massachusetts 01970–5353.
REFERENCES
Abel, D. (2000, December 28). Measuring what college students learn proves elusive. The Boston Globe, p. B1.
Evers, F., Rush, J., & Berdrow, I. (1998). The bases of competence. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass. Stassen, M., & Scorcinelli, M. D. (2001,
Febru-ary). Thriving in academe: Making assessment matter. The National Education Association Advocate. Retrieved February 9, 2006, from http://www2.nea.org/he/advo01/advo0102/front .html
