Reasoning skills are needed in the future work life. As such, it is important that reasoning skills be assessed in higher education, both in the selection phase and during education. This study aims to describe the instruments that are used to assess reasoning skills in higher education. The ultimate goal is to provide information upon which…

Active learning classrooms provide an ideal opportunity to develop key workplace skills such as teamwork, information processing, critical thinking, and problem solving. Although many active learning pedagogies implicitly support student development of these skills, the role of the instructor in explicitly prompting and assessing these skills in…

To identify the most important competencies for college graduates to succeed in the 21st century workforce, we conducted an analysis of the Occupational Information Network (O*NET) database. O*NET is a large job analysis operated and maintained by the U.S. Department of Labor. We specifically analyzed ratings of the importance of abilities (52…

Gestalt psychologists proposed two distinct learning mechanisms. Associative learning occurs gradually through the repeated co-occurrence of external stimuli or memories. Insight learning occurs suddenly when people discover new relationships within their prior knowledge as a result of reasoning or problem solving processes that re-organize or…

The present study explores stages in managerial problem-solving skills of participants beginning with formal education, and continuing through the professional workplace setting. We studied nine different levels of expertise: from novice student groups, to graduates and expert groups. Participants were asked to diagnose and solve business cases.…