Exploring the Relationships of Two Curriculum-improved Abilities Scales, Professional Development and Quantitative Skills, to Business Student Satisfaction and Employment Preparedness

Abstract

Despite the pandemic, on-going efforts to evaluate student perceptions of their curricula improving their abilities across different areas needs to be continued. This study examined one business school’s undergraduate curriculum. Twelve individual item goals of this curriculum closely corresponded to what employers look for on college students’ resumes (NACE, 2021). Ninety-three Fall 2021 graduating business seniors filled out a survey asking their perceptions about the business school’s curriculum improving their abilities on these twelve goals. To date, these individual attributes have not been analyzed together in prior studies to produce a smaller set of research scales. A factor analysis of these twelve individual items resulted in keeping nine of these items, creating two new reliable and distinct scales for future research, labeled as Professional Development (5 items) and Quantitative Skills (4 items). Significant positive relationships between these two scales and two outcomes, student satisfaction and employment preparation, were subsequently found. In addition, a new short multi-item, reliable Employment Preparedness scale was developed. After controlling for record-based student demographics (gender, race, state residency) and school-related variables (GPA, transfer student, quantitative/qualitative major), Quantitative Skills accounted for significant variance in both outcomes, while Professional Development accounted for only student satisfaction.