Self Evaluation
Academic skills have enabled me to achieve success since academic success is highly linked to the positive outcomes I value. Further, academic skills have made me gain better abilities, interests, and career goals. Students with excellent academic skills have a higher chance of getting employed and enjoying most employment opportunities after the completion of their studies. I affirm that academic success plays an important role for people especially when working in a diverse working climate. From my experience, academically skilled students show greater self-esteem and self-confidence which leads to academic excellence. In this context, academic skills enable students critically analyze journal articles and newsletters. My classmates have shown more progress in academic research due to the help of academic skills they possess.
Personal SWOT Analysis
SWOT analysis is a useful technique in evaluating my academic skills strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats (Son and Morrison, 2010).
Strengths
In the academic field, I interact with numerous course mates who possess excellent academic skills, and this establishes competition in the learning environment. However, I exhibit various strengths which enable compete them out, and these include:
- Excellent project management and research skills
- Quick learner and ability to develop alternative solutions
- Teamwork and sound communication skills
- Creativity, innovativeness, and optimism
Weaknesses
In my coursework, I use my personal weaknesses as an excellent opportunity for improvement. These shortcomings include:
- Shyness and inability to control my emotions
- Lack of understanding certain concepts and critical thinking models
- Lack of confidence and motivation
- The ability to proscanate and showing laziness in studies
Opportunities
There are other external factors that have influenced me positively towards achieving academic success and these include:
- Opportunities for career development in the field of business where am specializing
- New technologies that assist me in conducting academic research
- Growth in the professional sector and area of business
- Postmodern library with sufficient academic resources for research
Threats
Also, there are other external factors whose negative impact has been a hindering factor for me in achieving the academic and professional goals. There are:
- Competition from my classmates who possess much stronger academic skills
- Lecturers shortages in the college adversely affects my creativity
- Advanced technologies that require students to do research via mobile phones is costly
- My creative ideas being looked down upon by the lecturers
Primary Research
This report on academic skills uses primary research approach by employing quantitative data analysis in the analysis of the academic skills of different learners. Competency of academic skills plays a critical role in research (Cottrell, 2011, p. 45). Academic skills comprises of the ability to locate information, critically study and evaluate data from different sources. This report uses on primary research sources in ensuring a success completion of a research project within the set deadline.
Primary data sources mostly used are surveys, interviews, focus groups, the internet, research data, and original documents. However, this report uses interviews and surveys of students to collect data on their SWOT and compile the information together to obtain the desired results (Bryman and Bell, 2015, p. 60). Quantitative data analysis method is used in the extraction of academic skills themes and concepts elaboration. I portray these evidence based on the findings collected in the survey program which I participated.
The study sampled students through survey administration to collect their responses about their SWOT in academic skills. The responses from the learners suggested that policy making is the key driver to motivation by most students (Cottrell, 2011, p. 48). Most students join colleges with little knowledge and skills of doing academic research. However, as life continues in their study area their ability to think critically, creatively, and innovatively improve.
However, there are several challenges that hinder students ability to think creatively. The lack of enough lectures in the college inhibits students creativity. There is a rejection of students ideas, thoughts, and proposals by their colleague students and their supervisors and this lead to low self-esteem (Collis and Hussey, 2013, p. 66). With low self-esteem, students show a lack of confidence in their ideas and always feel shy to share their thoughts. As a result, some of the students give up and end up completing their studies without having innovated any creative idea.
Evaluation of Sources
The administration of survey programs in this study aims at gauging students SWOT and learning outcomes in their respective educational institution. Student orientation, advising registration (SOAR) method of survey administration is used in evaluating their results (Cottrell, 2011, p. 50). This comprehensive evaluation is limited to quantitative evaluation research tools.
The findings above need to get compiled together to form a uniform information that represents the responses of all students. The standard information gathered through the structured questionnaires have been used in generating quantitative data (Son and Morrison, 2010, p. 1103). The survey questionnaires were administered electronically, through face to face, and interviews. Only formal surveys were conducted since the larger population of students were sampled.
When measuring the frequency at which academic activities occur during studies, the academic values, career goals, academic concentrations, and personal student goals are evaluated (Shapiro, 2011, p. 88). The study skills evaluation focuses on both academic and nonacademic concerns whose faculty is related to both the professor and the students.
Synthesising
The synthesis of academic skills possessed by different students is based on precise dimensions some of which include: the rate of students satisfaction with academic skills, the evaluators skills, students knowledge level and outcomes, frequency of learning activities, and the relationship between the students and the evaluation (Shapiro, 2010, p. 67). This proper assessment is crucial in strengthening academic skills which help students to be creative and think critically in all sorts of institutional contexts.
The nature of evaluation techniques and the relationship has to be considered in synthesizing the primary quantitative data gathered. The responses collected suggest that most of us students find the warm and friendly attitude of our supervisors as an excellent perspective of encouraging us to be creative (Bryman and Bell, 2015, p. 60). Most students value the advice given to them by the advisors, and this helps in building education capacity of the student. On the other side, consultants focus to understand the abilities, aspirations, and skills of the student.
The ability of a lecturer to diagnose a student's academic weakness enables them to offer detailed advice on how to overcome such challenges. All cohorts of students have been responding positively to prescriptive and developmental styles used by tutors in advising them on how to improve critical and creative academic skills (Campbell, 2014, p. 9). Academic advice have increased our abilities, interests, and understanding of our life and career goals. Further, we can understand student support services, different postgraduate degree requirements, and university study policies.
References
Bryman, A. and Bell, E., 2015. Business research methods. Oxford University Press, USA.
Campbell, N., 2014. Business Academic Skills.
Collis, J. and Hussey, R., 2013. Business research: A practical guide for undergraduate and postgraduate students. Palgrave Macmillan.
Cottrell, S., 2011. Critical thinking skills: Developing effective analysis and argument. Palgrave Macmillan.
Shapiro, E.S., 2010. Academic skills problems fourth edition workbook. Guilford Press.
Shapiro, E.S., 2011. Academic skills problems: Direct assessment and intervention. Guilford Press.
Son, S.H. and Morrison, F.J., 2010. The nature and impact of changes in home learning environment on the development of language and academic skills in preschool children. Developmental Psychology, 46(5), p.1103.
