An examination of near-graduates' computer self-efficacy in light of business employers' expectations

The use of computers has become part of every day life. The high prevalence of computer use may lead employers to assume university graduates will have good computing skills. Such assumptions may be the reason that employers use broad terms to advertise the computing tasks required for graduate-level positions. This thesis investigates how well the expectations of employers match the perceptions of near-graduates about their computer skills. Four graduate-level positions were identified from advertisements placed in order to recruit graduates. The employers who placed these advertisements were surveyed by interview and questionnaire. Twenty-one students about to graduate from a university commerce programme were also interviewed and surveyed. It was found that the wording of the advertisements did not satisfactorily portray the requirements and intentions of the employers. It was also found that skills the near-graduates perceived they possessed frequently did not meet the expectations of employers. Results also show that the near-graduates did not fully understand which computing skills would be expected in the workplace. This study highlights implications for three groups: employers, graduates and educators.

Grantor dc:publisher

Lincoln University

Year dc:date

2009

Author dc:creator

• Gibbs, Shirley F.

• end user computing
• computer self efficacy
• business computing
• business graduates computing skills
• assessing computing skills
• computer literacy
• Marsden::280000 Information, Computing and Communication Sciences

Language dc:language

en

Identifier

Q112880732

OAI identifier oai:identifier

oai:researcharchive.lincoln.ac.nz:10182/1448