Communication skills in higher education vs the labor market: different perceptions and valuations

• Autor(a) principal: Braga, Inês
• Data de Publicação: 2023
• Outros Autores: Abreu, António
• Tipo de documento: Artigo
• Idioma: eng
• Título da fonte: Repositório Científico de Acesso Aberto de Portugal (Repositórios Cientìficos)
• Texto Completo: http://hdl.handle.net/10400.22/23792
• topic: Higher Education; Labor market; Communication skills

Communication skills are considered increasingly important by higher education institutions, but also by employers as they influence better professional perfor-mance. The literature review recommends a necessary and desirable alignment of the communicational aspect of academic curricula with work needs, so that graduates have professional success. The objective of this research is to know how communicational skills are seen and valued in higher education, specifically in a Portuguese Polytechnic Accounting and Business School. For this purpose, undergraduate and Masters students who integrate courses or approaches related to communicational skills are surveyed. Coordinators of some of these courses (who are also professors) are consulted too. The methodology adopted is the case study and the data collection techniques are questionnaires applied to a sample of students and interviews carried out with the Coordinators of some of afore-mentioned courses. According to a self-assessment carried out by students, it was concluded that their average communication performance is very good, which is not in line with the literature review. As for the existence of training, within the scope of communication skills, course coordinators and most students consider that these should be taught in higher education. In the opinion of the course di-rectors, there is an alignment between the skills taught in the courses and those that are required in the job market, an opinion that a not very expressive majority of students also share, although an overwhelming majority of students consider that this should be done. Course coordinators and students suggest motivating, practical and work-related pedagogical approaches for greater development of the skills in analysis.