Active Learning for Creating Innovators: Employability Skills beyond Industrial Needs

Abstract

In 2012, Japan’s Ministry of Education, Culture, Sports, Science, and Technology initiated a project entitled “Improving Higher Education for Industrial Needs” in which 147 universities have participated. One of the main purposes of this project is to identify what industrial needs and help develop university students’ employability skills through active learning as there has been a growing concern that university graduates lack employability skills that industry seeks. However, Japanese university instructors are unfamiliar with or lack skills for adopting active learning approaches in their courses. This study explores what skills industry needs, examines how these skills can be developed and assessed at university, and describes a course entitled “Business Planning in Practice” that intends to develop these skills through active learning offered at the Nagoya University of Commerce and Business, one of the universities participating in the national project. Business Planning in Practice has been selected as an active learning target course for the Improving Higher Education for Industrial Needs to demonstrate how a university course can employ active learning approaches. The findings show that the skills that industry needs are discovery skills, these skills could be nurtured in the form of research skills at university, and Business Planning in Practice had positive impacts in improving these skills through active learning approaches. This paper concludes with suggestions for how Japanese universities could establish an environment to create innovative human resources.

financial markets (equity, fixed income and derivative) are closely correlated with each other. However, we do see some level of lead-lag relationships among our variables and thus provide certain evidences against the efficient market hypothesis. Our results will offer insights towards a better understanding about how quickly different security markets process and reflect information thus benefit investors who wish to profit from the arbitrage opportunities.