Abstract:
The study is aimed at identifying and determining the modern workplace employability characteristics required by polytechnics’ electrical electronics graduates in the south-western zone of Nigeria for successful job performance. Survey research design was adopted for the study. The population of the study comprised all the modern workplace Human Resources Managers and all polytechnics’ electrical electronics HND II Students in the zone. The sample for this study consisted of 270 respondents (120 HRMs and 150 electrical/electronics HND II students) who were randomly selected. A 94 items structured questionnaire divided into five sections was used as the instrument for data collection. The instrument was subjected to face validation by three experts’, it was further pilot tested no 40 (20 HRMs and 20 electrical/electronics HND II students) respondents who were not part of the population for the study. Cronbach Alpha formula was used to establish the internal consistency of the instrument. The overall reliability coefficient for the instrument was calculated to be 0.87. Five research questions and five null hypotheses were formulated to guide the study. Mean and standard deviation were used to analyse the data for answering the research questions while the t-test statistics was employed to test the hypotheses at 0.05 level of significance. Based on the data it was found that, Personal Attributes, Self-Management skills, Communication skills, Higher-Order Thinking skills and Technology skills are all needed employability characteristics required by polytechnics’ electrical electronics graduates for successful participation in the modern workplace. Consequently, it was recommended among others that, the curriculum planners should incorporate this needed employability skills into the present curriculum used in the polytechnics so that the graduates will be well equipped for the modern workplace.
