Library Instruction versus Employers Needs: Do Recent Graduates Have the Critical Thinking Skills and Soft Skills Needed for Success?

Hahn, Susan E.; Pedersen, Jocelyn

Library Instruction versus Employers Needs: Do Recent Graduates Have the Critical Thinking Skills and Soft Skills Needed for Success?

dc.contributor.author	Hahn, Susan E.
dc.contributor.author	Pedersen, Jocelyn
dc.date.accessioned	2020-11-04T20:09:42Z
dc.date.available	2020-11-04T20:09:42Z
dc.date.issued	2020-10-09
dc.description.abstract	This paper is a review of the skills employers seeks in new graduates and the skill sets new graduates have to offer. Employers report they want to hire people with solid soft skills, research, critical thinking and problem-solving skills (Stewart, Wall, Marciniec, 2016). The question is: Does the literature support recent graduates’ media education and training in research, critical thinking and problem-solving skills? This paper will examine literature to determine whether there is a disparity between employers’ needs and the abilities of recent graduates who have grown up in an e-learning environment, and if so, where those disparities exist. Synthesizing this information has broad implications for future research into how universities can best educate and prepare students for success after graduation. Certainly, today’s undergraduate students are computer and Internet savvy, can they apply critical thinking skills to the vast amount information available to determine reliable sources? When using Google, can students identify a credible source, determine fake news from real, identify native advertising from editorial content, or learn to take researched information in, digest it, and apply it to real-world applications? This paper sets the stage for future research into the above questions and beyond.	en_US
dc.description.peerreview	Yes	en_US
dc.identifier.citation	Hahn, S., & Pedersen, J. (2020). Library Instruction versus Employers Needs: Do Recent Graduates Have the Critical Thinking Skills and Soft Skills Needed for Success?. Practical Academic Librarianship, 10(1)	en_US
dc.identifier.uri	https://hdl.handle.net/11244/325645
dc.language	en_US	en_US
dc.rights	Attribution 4.0 International	*
dc.rights.uri	http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/	*
dc.subject	Media	en_US
dc.subject	Education and instruction	en_US
dc.subject	Training	en_US
dc.subject	E-learning	en_US
dc.subject	Information Literacy	en_US
dc.subject	Instruction	en_US
dc.title	Library Instruction versus Employers Needs: Do Recent Graduates Have the Critical Thinking Skills and Soft Skills Needed for Success?	en_US
dc.type	Article	en_US
ou.group	OU Libraries	en_US