Accepted Papers from TCEA Symposium 2008

Curriculum Development: Which Software
Application Skills Do Employers Want?

Susan Evans Jennings, Ed.D.
Stephen F. Austin State University
Department of General Business

S. Ann Wilson, Ph.D.
Stephen F. Austin State University
Department of General Business

ABSTRACT: In education, our consumer is, of course, our students. However, if that student goes out to work for a company one might consider the ultimate consumer to be the employer who hires our students. This research study was developed in order to determine what those employers wanted in terms of the computer software they would like employees to know. A list of employers that recruited on the campus of a mid-sized university in Texas was used to try to ascertain this information. Surveys were sent to 869 employers. The resulting response rate was 9.7%. In the top six most requested software application knowledge in order were Microsoft Word, Microsoft Outlook, Internet Explorer/Netscape Navigator (which did not break out the two browsers) Microsoft Excel, Microsoft PowerPoint, and Microsoft Access. An interesting finding was though the software choices remained the same, the order when rated “not beneficial at all to performing job” changed. The order then was Microsoft Word, Microsoft Excel, Microsoft PowerPoint, Internet Explorer/Netscape Navigator, Microsoft Outlook, and Microsoft Access. Only the first and sixth remained the same. This information is very beneficial to know when planning the curriculum for our programs.