Key Skills and Competencies. Symposium.

N

25

Adult Development; Adult Learning; Age; Career Choice; Career Development; Career Exploration; Communication Skills; Competence; Creativity; Critical Thinking; Developed Nations; Economics; Employment Level; Foreign Countries; Goal Orientation; Human Resources; Interpersonal Competence; Job Satisfaction; Job Skills; Labor Force Development; Lifelong Learning; Literature Reviews; Models; Motivation; Occupational Aspiration; Organizational Change; Performance Based Assessment; Postsecondary Education; Problem Solving; Professional Development; Research Design; Self Actualization; Self Concept; Sex; Skill Development; Success; Training; Training Objectives; Vocational Education

Netherlands; United Kingdom

This document contains three papers on key skills and competencies and human resource development (HRD). "Career Related Competencies" (Marinka A.C.T. Kuijpers) reports findings from surveys completed by Dutch employees who identified these issues: self-reflection is more important than career control; age and gender influence attitude toward career actualization; employment level is related to self-presentation competence; and career actualization is highly related to an individual's perception of career success. Based upon the findings, an instrument for identifying and measuring competencies for goal and value achievement is presented. "Project Management Competencies Needed by HRD Professionals: A Literature Review" (Charlotte M. Nitardy, Gary N. McLean) reviews the current literature on project management competencies, which focus on scope, time and cost; and suggests their application to HRD responsibilities such as job evaluations, staff development, recruitment and selection, training needs analysis and planning, job descriptions, and assessments and appraisals. "The Determination of Key Skills from an Economic Perspective" (Jasper B. van Loo, Bert Toolsema) defines key skills based on an economically inspired framework and applies the theory to survey results of Dutch vocational education graduates, whose key skills were found to be problem-solving, independence, oral presentation/speaking, accuracy/carefulness, initiative/creativity, and contactual. All three papers have substantial bibliographies. (AJ)

2003

ED474291