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Abstract
Extensive research demonstrated that firms may pursue several advantages in hiring individuals with the set of emotional, social, and cognitive (ESC) competencies that are most critical for business success. Therefore, the role of education for competency development is becoming paramount. Prior studies have questioned the traditional methods, grounded in the lecture format, as a way to effectively develop ESC competencies. Alternatively, they propose experiential learning techniques that involve participants in dedicated courses or activities. Despite the insights provided by these studies, they do not take into account a comprehensive set of learning methods and their combined effect on the individual's competency portfolio within educational programs that aim to transfer primarily professional skills. Our study aims to fill these gaps by investigating the impact of the interplay between different learning methods on ESC competencies through a sample of students enrolled in the first year of a master's degree program. After providing a classification of three learning methods [traditional learning (TL), individual experiential learning (IEL), and social experiential learning (SEL)], the study delves into their combined influence on ESC competencies, adopting the Artificial Neural Network. Contrary to prior studies, our results provide counterintuitive evidence, suggesting that TL needs to be implemented together, on the one hand, with IEL to achieve a significant effect on emotional competencies and, on the other hand, with SEL to have an impact on social competencies. Moreover, IEL plays a prominent role in stimulating cognitive competencies. Our research contributes to educational literature by providing new insights on the effective combination of learning methods that can be adopted into programs that transfer technical knowledge and skills to promote behavioral competencies.
Highlights
Research has broadly acknowledged that behavioral competencies, namely emotional, social and cognitive (ESCs) competencies, account for a substantial and important amount of the variance in predicting job performance, career success, and personal wellbeing (Boyatzis, 1982; Spencer and Spencer, 1993; Goleman, 1998; Williams, 2008; Amdurer et al, 2014)
Since the independent variables are the three learning methods (TS, individual experiential learning (IEL), social experiential learning (SEL)), we defined three different Artificial Neural Networks (ANNs). This choice is motivated by the consideration that the ANNs are a more flexible model compared with the regression one
The ANNs, are able to capture both linear and non-linear relationships between variables without a priori definition of the type of relationship. This feature enables us to delve into the interaction among variables, consistent with our study whose aim is to investigate the impact of the interplay between traditional and experiential learning methods on ESC competencies development
Summary
Research has broadly acknowledged that behavioral competencies, namely emotional, social and cognitive (ESCs) competencies, account for a substantial and important amount of the variance in predicting job performance, career success, and personal wellbeing (Boyatzis, 1982; Spencer and Spencer, 1993; Goleman, 1998; Williams, 2008; Amdurer et al, 2014). Prior studies show that by designing specific courses or focusing on a set of competencies in selected courses (Chen et al, 2004; Boyatzis and Saatcioglu, 2008; McEnrue et al, 2009; Sheehan et al, 2009; Waddock and Lozano, 2013), and assigning specific experiential activities assigned during the course (Vaatstra and De Vries, 2007; Hoover et al, 2010; Landau and Meirovich, 2011; Kuijpers and Meijers, 2012) stimulates the development of emotional, social, and cognitive (ESC) competencies These contributions have questioned the traditional lecture format as a way to effectively develop ESC competencies. The involvement in such dedicated courses and experiential exercises requires personal responsibility since the change is self-directed, in line with the pedagogy of whole person learning
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