Aim/PurposeWithin higher education, graduating students who are able to solve illstructured, complex, open-ended, and collaborative, workplace problems is recognized as paramount. Because of this, there is a need to assess this skill across the curriculum.Impact on Society Students must be prepared to solve workplace problems to meet the needs of 21 st century employment. Future ResearchFurther research should be conducted with this assessment instrument, or one similar, outside of this fairly unique UAE-based context.Effective Assessment of Workplace Problem-Solving in Higher Education 2

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Aim/Purpose: Assessing non-technical skills is very difficult and current approaches typically assess the skills separately. There is a need for better quality assessment of these skills at undergraduate and postgraduate levels. Background: A method has been developed for the computing discipline that assesses all six non-technical skills prescribed by ABET (Accreditation Board for Engineering and Technology), the accreditation board for engineering and technology. It has been shown to be a valid and reliable method for undergraduate students Methodology: The method is based upon performance-based assessment where a team of students discuss and analyze an ill-defined authentic issue over a 12-day period on a discussion board Contribution: This is the first published method to assess all six skills simultaneously in computing and here it has been trialed with postgraduate students. Findings: The results show that the method, though originally designed for undergraduates, can successfully be used with postgraduate students. Additionally, the postgraduate students found it to be very beneficial to their learning. Recommendations for Practitioners: This method can successfully assess non-technical skills at tertiary level in the computing discipline and it can be adapted to other disciplines. Though designed for assessment it has been found to be an ideal method for teaching the skills at both undergraduate and post graduate levels. Recommendation for Researchers: Compared with other assessment approaches this method has many advantages: it is a direct method of measurement, it is a rigorous method and it assesses all skills simultaneously Impact on Society: Proficiency in non-technical skills is critical for development of knowledge-based economies. This method is a tool to assist in developing these skills. Future Research: Researchers can examine how the method benefits students in their context and examine if there are differences between their context and the UAE context presented here. Researchers can work on developing a rubric solely for postgraduate use i.e., to capture the range of levels among postgraduates.

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Purpose There is considerable agreement around the foundation skills required by employers that will enable graduates to integrate and devise promising solutions for the challenges faced by knowledge and globalized societies. These are life skills (communication skills, teamwork and leadership skills, language skills in reading and writing and information literacy), transferable skills (such as problem-solving, including critical thinking, creativity and quantitative reasoning) and technology skills (search for knowledge and build upon it). Foundation skills, however, are recognized to be difficult both to teach and assess. This paper aims to describe a performance assessment method to assess and measure these skills in a uniquely concurrent way – the General Education Foundation Skills Assessment (GEFSA). Design/methodology/approach The GEFSA framework comprises a scenario/case describing an unresolved contemporary issue, which engages student groups in online discussions, and a task-specific analytic rubric to concurrently assess the extent to which students have attained the targeted foundation skills. The method was applied in three semesters – during 2016 and 2017. These students were non-native English speaking students in a General Education program at a university in the UAE. Findings Results obtained from the rubric for each foundation skill were analyzed and interpreted to ensure robustness of method and tool usability and reliability, provide insight into, and commentary on, the respective skill attainment levels and assist in establishing realistic target ranges for General Education student skill attainment. The results showed that the method is valid and provides valuable data for curriculum development. Originality/value This is the first method in published literature that directly assesses the foundation skills for General Education students simultaneously, thus providing educators with valuable data on the skill level of the students. Additionally, repeated use of the method is a valuable way of teaching skills.

The issue of workplace toxicity constitutes a major problem for employers, employees and society at large. Toxicity in a workplace context relates to damaging behaviours perpetrated by individuals and organisations that netatively impact on the health and wellbeing of others. Workplace toxicty is habitually associated with activities such as bullying, harrassment, unethical and even illegal acts. In this article, today’s workplace is likenened to a cage where ambition and greed drive people to engage in toxic behaviour to fight for whatever scarce rewards are on offer. Set against a backdrop of continuous demands on employees in a era of constant change and challenge, leadership practice in the 21st century is understandably seeped in complexity. Whilst conditions of scarcity are in fact constructed by employers in today’s lean environments, workplace toxicity has significant implications for organisational leaders in terms of work place disputes, absenteeism and litigation etc. Twentieth century hierarchial and autocratic leadership models are now deemed to be both obsolete and wholly inadedgate to inform leadership practice in the knowledge era. This conceptual article looks at the efficacy of complexity leadership theory (CLT) in empowering today’s leader to better understand and address 21st century workplace toxicity.

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