Opening the Black-Box in Lifelong E-Learning for Employability: A Framework for a Socio-Technical E-Learning Employability System of Measurement (STELEM)

Abstract

Human beings must develop many skills to cope with the large amount of challenges that currently exist in the world: media empowerment for an active and democratic citizenship, knowledge acquisition and conversion for lifelong and life-wide learning, 21st century skills for matching demand and supply in labor markets, and dispositional employability for unpredictable future career success. One of the tools for achieving these is online education, in which students have the chance to manage their own time, content, and goals. Thus, this paper analyzes these issues from the perspective of skills gained through e-learning and validates the Socio-Technical E-learning Employability System of Measurement (STELEM) framework. The research was carried out with former students of the Universitat Oberta de Catalunya. Exploratory and confirmatory factorial analyses validate several consistent and reliable scales in two areas: (i) employability, based on educational social capital, media empowerment, knowledge acquisition, knowledge conversion, literacy, digitalness, collaboration, resilience, proactivity, identity, openness, motivation, organizational culture, and employment security; and (ii) socio-technical systems existing in this open online university, based on its information and communications technology (ICT), learning tasks, as well as student-centered and organizational approaches. The research provides two new psychometrical scales that are useful for the evaluation, monitoring, and assessment of relationships and influences between socio-technical e-learning organizations and employability skills development, and proposes a set of indicators related to human and social capital, valid in employability contexts.

Supporting Employability by a Skills Assessment Innovative Tool—Sustainable Transnational Insights from Employers

“…Regarding the validity and reliability of an uniform, unique tool for employability measurement, in the recent international literature we also identified other types of framework and/or tools with an appropriate aim, i.e., STELEM (Socio-Technical E-learning Employability System of Measurement) [17], self-perceived employability (SPE) scale [40,41], work ability index (WAI) or the single-item work ability score (WAS) [13], standardized competence assessment procedure [42], data mining techniques being in fact the single tool that it shows their weaknesses that they need to overcome for being employable in various companies [6], extra and co-curricular activities (ECCAs assessment) [43], novel methodology for assessment of transverse and specific competences in civil engineering [44,45], pilot tests [46], CAT (Competency Assessment Tool) [47], WIL-Work-integrated learning [48], fuzzified expert system for employability assessment [49], CBT(competencies-based training systems) [50] or assessment tool for sustainable employability [51].…”

“…Due of the phenomenon of an increased unemployment rate pervasive among students [4], higher education must add value by developing job-related skills and competencies [2]. Also, human beings must develop many skills, including knowledge acquisition for lifelong and life-wide learning and dispositional employability for an unpredictable future [17].…”

Relationship Modeling of Critical Success Factors for Enhancing Sustainability and Performance in E-Learning

“…The E-learning system can be made successful with the help of the realization of CSFs [49]. Enforcement of an appropriate system will contribute to augmenting sustainability and performance of E-learning in higher educational institutions [59,60].…”

“…[19,26,29,30,[41][42][43][44]46,52,56,57] 11 Interaction with Instructor [31,35,36,40,43,48] 12 Interaction with other Students [19,29,33,36,40,43,45] 13 Motivation [13,26,31,41,42,57] 14 Easy language Communication [31,35,37,40] 15 Appropriate System for Enhancing Sustainability and performance in E-Learning[35,48,49,[58][59][60][61] …”

Employable through Social Media: An Intervention Study

“…Professional development acquired through formal training and informal interactions with peers has become key for individuals' careers and organizations' competitiveness, as they allow individuals to enhance and maintain their employability in ever changing markets [1,2]. Enabled by technological developments, new suppliers have emerged and social media use has been increasingly integrated in organizational landscapes [3].…”