Presenting is considered as a core skill for the higher-educated professional (De Grez, 2009). However, many graduated students often fail to show effective presentation behaviors (Chan, 2011) and suffer from presentation anxiety Smith & Sodano, 2011). The development of presentation skills, therefore, is a crucial objective in higher education. While previous research emphasized the essence of practice and feedback opportunities for fostering students’ presentation skills and overcoming presentation anxiety (Van Ginkel et al., 2015), issues have been reported in educational practice that prevent the optimal development of the time consuming skill. These issues involve, amongst others, time constrains and the high workload of teachers (Adubra et al., 2019). Interestingly, studies have shown that innovative technologies such as Virtual Reality (VR) are valuable for offering practice opportunities and delivering personalized, automated feedback within presentation tasks (Van Ginkel et al., 2019). However, the previously studied automated feedback consisted of quantitative feedback reports which had to be interpreted by a teacher. Nowadays, technological developments allow the conversion of quantitative information into qualitative feedback messages that are constructed based on high-quality feedback criteria (Hattie & Timperley, 2007). Therefore, this experimental study aims to investigate the impact of qualitative automated feedback messages on students’ presentation skills (post-test only) and the development of presentation anxiety (pre-test post-test design). This experimental condition is compared with a validated control condition in which a teacher interprets quantitative, automatedfeedback reports. For data collection, validated rubrics and questionnaires are adopted. Besides, perceptions towards the utility of the feedback are assessed. The results of this study reveal no significant difference in presentation skills scores between the two feedback conditions. Moreover, students in both groups perceived the feedback and the feedback source as equally valuable for their presentation skills development. Interestingly, a significant decrease in presentation anxiety was determined from pre-test to post-test, without a significant differential impact. Findings of this study suggest that the integration of qualitative feedback messages in VR is effective for students’ presentation skills development. Moreover, practicing a presentation in VR and receiving automated feedback significantly decreases presentation anxiety. Insights from this study contribute to reducing the workload of teachers and challenging teachers in professionalizing to their new roles as coaches supporting students’ learning processes (Adubra et al., 2019). Future studies should focus on how effectively integrating peer-to-peer learning in VR-based education could further support teachers in constructing skills education within the digital era.
LINK
From the article: "AbstractFeedback plays a central role in learning. Crucial to this is the nature and timing ofthe feedback. This experimental study explores the efficacy of immediate computer-mediated feedback within a virtual reality environment designed to facilitate thedevelopment of pre-university students' presentation skills. Two conditions wereestablished to assess the efficacy: immediate computer-mediated feedback; a controlcondition of delayed expert-mediated feedback. Results showed improvement butno statistically relevant difference in performance gains between the two conditions,suggesting both can facilitate learning. Furthermore, students perceived the environ-ment to be an effective and motivating platform in which to practise presentationskills. For educators seeking viable alternatives to face-to-face presentation practiceand feedback, the finding that immediate computer-mediated feedback is potentiallyas effective in aiding presentation performance is crucial for two reasons: first, itexpands practice opportunities for students; second, it could result in less pressureon resources, including time and staffing."
LINK
A presentation focusing on digital disruptions in tourism and the effects on future skills needs for employees in the industry.
DOCUMENT
from the article: "While previous studies have stressed the importance of feedback delivered by experts, it is unclear whether students' oral presentation competence can be fostered through innovative technology for delivering feedback. This experimental study examined the effectiveness of a virtual reality-based task, in which first-year undergraduate students practiced their presentation in a virtual environment and received feedback produced by the system, on their presentation competence components (i.e. cognition, behaviour and attitudes towards presenting). The effects were compared with a control condition, which was a face-to-face presentation task with expert feedback. The students’ performance was measured using pre- and post-test multiple-choice tests, validated rubrics, and self-evaluation instruments. Results revealed significant improvements from pre-test to post-test in all three presentation competence components, without a difference between the conditions. Furthermore, the self-evaluation tests showed that students who presented in virtual reality were appreciative of the detailed and analytical feedback they received. Because of sample size limitations, the effects found could not be generalised. Therefore, future research on a larger sample is needed to examine population effects. Follow-up studies should focus on the extent to which virtual reality-based tasks can encourage self-regulation skills for the effective and efficient integration of these tasks in presentation courses. "
LINK
While feedback is frequently emphasized as a crucial principle of presentation courses in higher education, previous studies revealed that teachers outperform peers in terms of impact on students’ development of oral presentation competence. Further, presentation research showed that the lack of quality of peer feedback can be considered as an essential argumentation for the identified differences in effect. Follow-up field experiments demonstrated that Virtual Reality (VR) can be considered as a valuable alternative feedback source for developing public speaking skills, since this technology is able to simulate real-life presentation situations as well as to deliver feedback from the VR system to the individual learner. Recent technological developments allowed to convert quantitative information from VR systems into qualitative feedback messages that directly relate to the standards for high-quality feedback. If students are able to individually interpret the feedback messages without the intervention of a human feedback source, it could enrich the quality of feedback in peer and self-learning and further increase students’ oral presentation competence development. This chapter provides a synthesis of the literature in presentation research with the aim to construct a research agenda on computer-mediated feedback in VR for peer learning in this field. Further, two recent VR experiments in presentation research are discussed with the aim to effectively construct feedback messages in VR for improving peer learning.
LINK
The importance of professional skills in future engineering jobs is beyond discussion. Increasing numbers of universities have integrated training for such skills in their engineering curricula to prepare students to become highly qualified employees. HU University of Applied Sciences Utrecht also implemented professional skills training in the IT Bachelor program to help our students develop towards successful and highly demanded IT engineers. However, these courses consistently score low in our student satisfaction surveys. To find the cause of this negative evaluation, we previously studied the motivation, attitude and anxiety of IT students towards learning soft, or professional, skills. This former quantitative study indicates that our IT students tend to have a positive motivation and attitude toward learning professional skills, while ’anxiety’ in learning professional skills increases from the first to the third year. In this qualitative study, we try to find causes for the increasing anxiety among IT students. We interviewed six third and fourth year IT students and after analysing these interviews we found that these students have experienced the need for professional skills during their internship. Besides, they emphasize the need of obtaining these skills for future employment. From the analysis of the interviews, it also appears that IT students rather felt difficulty in obtaining communication skills then anxiety. A possible cause for this difficulty mentioned by students was the character of students and the influence of the teacher. To overcome this difficulty obtaining communication skills, students suggested that training skills in an authentic engineering situation is more effective than doing exercises with simulated cases. However, the results of this study did not yield a conclusive insight in the cause of increased anxiety, hence further research is needed.
DOCUMENT
Universal school-based social-emotional learning (SEL) programs target several social-emotional skills assuming a relationship between the skills and psychosocial health outcomes. However, greater insight into the relationship is required to clarify the skills that are most crucial to address. It will support the development and refinement of SEL programs. This study investigated (1) the relationship among the social-emotional skills, (2) the association between the skills and psychosocial health variables, and (3) the mediating effect of the skills on psychosocial variables. Results: There was a high degree of overlap between the five skills (self-awareness, social awareness, self-management, relationship skills, and responsible decision-making). The skills were univariately associated with emotional-behavioral difficulties and prosocial behavior. In the multivariate model, self-management most strongly correlated with emotional-behavioral difficulties and mediated the relationship between self-awareness and emotional-behavioral difficulties. Social awareness showed the highest correlation with prosocial behavior and mediated the relationship between prosocial behavior and three other skills: self-awareness, relationship skills, and responsible decision-making.
DOCUMENT
Introduction: Digital technologies , such as big AI and cloud computing are driving digital transformation (DT) in organizations. The World Economic Forum ( reports that over 75% of organizations plan to adopt these technologies within five years, leading to a skills disruption as employees lack the necessary skills for DT. HRM departments are responsible for preparing their workforce for DT through reand upskilling initiatives (Ivaldi et al., 2022; Vereycken et al., To adapt HRM’s strategic talent management for tailored re and upskilling, insight is needed in workforce DT skills mastery. The objective of this study is to develop a validated instrument for measuring workforce DT skills mastery, building upon the Digital Transformations Skills Framework ( (Bouwmans et al., 2022, 2024). The instrument is a self assessment tool, allowing individuals to evaluate their proficiency across various skill dimensions.
DOCUMENT
Times a changing. Mangement roles change. Quailty managers more an more are change managers and need soft skills to perform well.
MULTIFILE
The relevance of an internationalised home curriculum for all students is generally acknowledged. Other than study abroad, the home curriculum gives programs of study full control over the way students learn international, intercultural, and interdisciplinary perspectives. However, misconceptions, lack of strategies, lack of skills of academics, and lack of connection between stakeholders present major obstacles to internationalising teaching and learning “at home”. The practical trajectory outlined in this chapter presents programs of study with the opportunity to focus on employability skills instead of on a semantic discussion on internationalisation. By linking this orientation on employability skills with the articulation of intended learning outcomes (ILOs), a pathway for developing employability skills in all students will be created. Within this pathway, international, intercultural, interdisciplinary, and future-focused dimensions serve to enhance students’ acquiring employability skills. The trajectory presented here evolved out of action research on internationalisation with academics. During the action research, taking employability skills as a starting point emerged as an enabler for the internationalisation process. It helped to overcome lengthy and semantic discussions on the meaning of internationalisation. After that, international and intercultural dimensions are included in these employability skills. These skills are then translated into ILOs. This is an Accepted Manuscript of a book chapter published by Routledge/CRC Press in Internationalization and employability in higher education on 19/25/06, available online: https://www.taylorfrancis.com/books/e/9781351254885.
MULTIFILE
