Employability and competences of Pedagogy, Psychology, and Educational Psychology graduates: a comparative study of employers and graduates

Pilar Pineda-Herrero
Anna Ciraso-Cali
Mary Armijos-Yambay

Abstract

The labour market integration of recent graduates can be influenced by several factors, such as the economic situation of the country, the quality of their university education, and the demands of the labour market.

Although the Spanish economy has recently recovered somewhat, it still has high rates of youth unemployment, even among the best educated groups. Therefore, it is important to analyse in greater depth the transversal competences required and offered in the labour market as these can affect the integration and job satisfaction of university graduates. To analyse the differences in the view of graduates in Pedagogy, Psychology, and Educational Psychology and their employers regarding the competences needed for the labour market this article uses data from the AQU’s ‘Universitat i Treball a Catalunya’ survey (2014a and 2014b) of graduates in these subjects from Catalan universities and of their employers.

The results show discrepancies between employers’ and graduates’ views. On the one hand, graduates regard some competences as more relevant, such as decision-making, while employers give greater importance to others, such as those relating to information technology and language skills, as well as theoretical and practical training. However, both groups agree that teamwork is the most important competence for work, supporting results obtained in other studies. Furthermore, employers are more satisfied than the graduates with their level in the areas of creativity, computer science, and languages. Problem-solving, however, is an area of competence that could be enhanced in university education.

This study’s contribution is to provide evidence based on the retrospective assessment of recent graduates that can help align university training with employers’ expectations.

Cite this article as: Pineda-Herrero, P., Ciraso-Cali, A. y Armijos-Yambay, M. (2018). Competencias para la empleabilidad de los titulados en Pedagogía, Psicología y Psicopedagogía: un estudio comparativo entre empleadores y titulados | Employability and competences of Pedagogy, Psychology, and Educational Psychology graduates: a comparative study of employers and graduates. Revista Española de Pedagogía, 76 (270), 313-333. doi: 10.22550/REP76-2-2018-06

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Author Biography

Pilar Pineda-Herrero has a PhD in Educational Sciences and Lecturer in Occupational Pedagogy in the Faculty of Education of the Universidad Autónoma de Barcelona. She leads the EFI (Efficacy of Training) research group and is a member of the GIPE (Interdisciplinary Educational Policies Group) research group. Her lines of research are education and work, the efficacy of continuous training, and evaluating the impact of training policies.

Anna Ciraso-Calí holds a diploma in Educational Sciences (Università degli Studi di Padova, Italia) and has a degree in Pedagogy from the Universidad Autónoma de Barcelona. She is an independent researcher and cooperates on research projects with the UAB. Her main areas of interest are evaluating training, transfer of learning, education and work, and initial vocational education and training. She is a member of the EFI (Efficacy of Training) research group and of the GIPE (Interdisciplinary Educational Policies Group) research group.

Mary Armijos-Yambay is a graduate of the Escuela Superior Politécnica del Li-toral (ESPOL) in Guayaquil, Ecuador and she was a research assistant in the Economics Research Centre at ESPOL. She completed her preprofessional practices in the Department of Pedagogy of the Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona. She is currently working on a research project to qualify as an economist.

Citación recomendada | Recommended citation

Pineda-Herrero, P., Ciraso-Cali, A., & Armijos-Yambay, M. (2018) . Employability and competences of Pedagogy, Psychology, and Educational Psychology graduates: a comparative study of employers and graduates. Revista Española de Pedagogía, 76(270). https://www.revistadepedagogia.org/rep/vol76/iss270/13