One of the biggest reasons students attend post-secondary education is to get a better job than a high school education would allow (e.g., Eagan et al., 2014; Stolzenberg et al., 2019). However, many students, across degree types, fail to see how their degree is providing them with workplace-ready skills (Strada-Gallup, 2017; see also Hansen, 2021). Research has shown that psychology students do not believe that transferable skills are emphasized in their courses, and they fail to understand the competencies that underlie these skills (Martini et al., 2015a, 2015b). Additionally, despite holding jobs in teaching, healthcare, management, sales, and other industries that many of us would consider connected to psychology, only 27% of graduates with bachelor’s degrees in psychology report their jobs as being “closely related” to their studies (American Psychological Association, 2021). What is going on here?
The challenge of identifying transferable skills
The ability to transfer knowledge and skills from one context to another is a critical part of learning, but transfer doesn’t happen automatically; it depends a great deal on the learning environment, and educators play an integral role in the transfer process (e.g., Perkins & Salomon, 1988). Although students might recognize that “critical thinking” is an important skill developed in college, they may have difficulty understanding how the literature review they wrote in their social psychology class develops this skill, and even more trouble recognizing how this connects to a job ad that lists “ability to learn material and complex processes” among its qualifications. As psychology instructors, I suspect that most of us are quite good at helping students recognize how the skills they are developing might be applied to research, clinical, or other academic contexts. What most of us have far less experience with is considering how students might apply our psychology-based skills outside of these domains. If we’ve never had experience applying these skills to administrative, sales, or finance occupations ourselves, for example, and we’ve never attempted to bridge these connections with students, should we really be surprised that they later fail to see the connection between their jobs and their degrees?
In recent years, driven by mounting concerns surrounding the value of a degree in psychology (see Vespia, 2020) there has been a push for faculty to do more to help students recognize the transferable skills they are learning as part of their psychology degree. One of the guiding principles underlying APA’s Guidelines for the Undergraduate Psychology Majoropens in new window ( Version 3.0; Guidelines 3.0) is that undergraduate programs should do a better job preparing students for entry into the workforce after graduation (see also Halonen & Dunn, 2018). Faculty are encouraged to “be explicit about how their courses have the potential to hone skills that will have value in the workplace” (p. 27, APA Guidelines 3.0). The Skillful Psychology Student opens in new window (SPS; Naufel et al., 2018) is a key starting place. This resource identifies five basic skill domains and 17 specific transferable skills that are central to most undergraduate psychology programs and pivotal to career preparation (Appleby et al., 2019). Since the publication of this document, additional resources have been created to help students (and to help faculty help students) identify, articulate, and document the transferable skills they are developing as they complete their degree, including Appleby’s “Skillabus” (2021), Madson et al’s (2023) syllabus template, and Waggoner Denton’s (2021) fillable resource for students. Recognizing that more resources are needed to help instructors make connections between their courses and the skills identified in the SPS, 2023 STP President Diane Finley collaborated with APA’s Committee on Associate and Baccalaureate Education to form a joint working group that would help fill this gap.
Emphasizing transferable skills across the psychology curriculum
The joint working group focused on nine core courses. For each course, a subgroup of faculty used their experience and best judgment to determine which three to four skills from the SPS are most likely developed in that course. For example, in statistics, the key skills identified are analytical and critical thinking, judgment and decision-making, and familiarity with hardware and software; in introductory psychology, the key skills identified are inclusivity, analytical thinking, written communication, and self-regulation. By narrowing the focus to a few key skills rather than trying to cover all possibilities, our hope is that it will be easier for instructors to ensure that students understand what each skill means, how the skill is developed in that course, and how the skill might be used in the workplace. Importantly, all the resources we’ve created are designed to be customizable templates. Instructors may revise or swap out skills as they see fit for their courses.
Overview of the market ready resources
- Courses: Introductory psychology, statistics, research methods, abnormal psychology, developmental psychology, cognitive psychology, biological psychology, social psychology and personality
- Syllabus inserts: One-page documents that define each of the key skills, explain how the skill will be developed in the course, and provide examples of how that skill may be applied in the workplace
- Power points: Slides that correspond with the syllabus inserts and are intended to help the instructor review this information in class and provide exposure to specific jobs that utilize the featured skills
- Optional activities: Slides describe first day and last day class activities that may be used to encourage students to actively engage with the material. Example:
- Last day activity: Students are introduced to the STAR (situation, task, action, result) method of preparing for a behavioral interview and they practice answering interview questions that showcase the skills they developed in the course
We hope that these resources will be a useful starting place for instructors looking to place more emphasis on skill development in their courses, and that as a result, our students will better recognize how their psychology courses are preparing them for the workplace.
Want to learn more?
- View our resourcesopens in new window
- PsychSessions podcast on plug-and-chug skills resources for facultyopens in new window
Working group members
- Ashley Waggoner Denton (co-chair), University of Toronto
- Janet Peters (co-chair), Washington State University
- Drew Appleby, Indiana University-Purdue University Indianapolis (emeritus)
- Blythe Duell, Washington State University
- Kimberly DuVall, James Madison University
- Michelle Fellows, University of Alaska Anchorage
- Erica Gannon, Clayton State University
- Alisha Holland, Trinity College
- Christopher Holland, Cabrini University
- Andrea Kozak, Oakland University
- Amy Lauer, Mount Mary University
- Michael Madson, University of Southern Mississippi
- Tanya Martini, Brock University
- Kimberly McClure Benchley, St. John Fisher College
- Lindsay Morton, Marywood University
- Jhotisha Mugon, University of Victoria
- Dan Segrist, Southern Illinois University Edwardsville
- Brandon Sparks, Kingston University
- Amanda Woodward, University of Minnesota
- Steffen Wilson, Eastern Kentucky University
Ashley Waggoner Denton is an associate professor, teaching stream in the psychology department at the University of Toronto, where she teaches courses including introductory psychology, psychology careers and applications, and the psychology of student success. Regardless of the class she is teaching, she strives to engage students with authentic assessments, to promote reflective learning, and to create a welcoming environment where all learners can thrive. She engages in research on topics that lie at the intersection of social psychology and pedagogy, often in collaboration with undergraduate student researchers. Her dedication to teaching has been recognized through awards, including the Outstanding Teaching Award from the University of Toronto and the Jane Halonen Early Career Teaching Award from the Society for the Teaching of Psychology. She is currently serving as editor of
Best Practices in Teaching and Learning
for the Society for the Teaching of Psychology and as co-chair of APA’s Committee on Associate and Baccalaureate Education.
