Research indicates that students are not ready for their careers upon graduation. We are conducting research to gauge the career readiness of Neeley students as a benchmark for potential improvement. We will be using a proven research-based career readiness assessment by National Association of Colleges and Employers (NACE) as well as a learning and development platform CareerReady360.com / CareerReady.AI.
Overview: You are invited to participate in a research study. In order to participate, you must be a Neeley Business School student. Taking part in this study is voluntary. The investigators will explain the study to you and will any answer any questions you might have. It is your choice whether or not you take part in this study. If you agree to participate and then choose to withdraw from the study, that is your right, and your decision will not be held against you. Zain Ali, the Principal Investigator for this study, designed the Career Ready platform as part of his PhD dissertation
Study Details: This study is being conducted at the Neeley College of Business in a virtual manner using the CareerReady.ai platform. The purpose of this study is to gauge the career readiness of Neeley Business School. Research indicates that many employers want “college graduates who have soft skills” but they have difficulty finding such candidates (Bauer-Wolf, 2019) while the consensus is that these skills should have been developed in college. You are being asked to take part in a research study about career readiness of students based on the 8 competencies that employers desire the most from college graduates and also identified by National Association of Colleges and Employers (NACE). The study will be completed online using Careerready.ai platform and should take approx. 15 minutes to complete. We will request the participants to volunteer for an interview that will be one hour or less in duration, depending on the volunteer response a subset or all the volunteer will be interviewed for qualitative feedback.
Participants: You are being asked to take part because you are an undergraduate or graduate student in the Neeley College of Business at TCU. If you decide to be in this study, you will be one of approx.100 graduate and 500 undergraduate students requested to participate in this research study at TCU.
Your participation in this research study involves completing a career readiness assessment on self that includes quantitative and qualitative feedback, this will help you develop a personal development plan to be better prepared for your career upon graduation.
Voluntary Participation: Your participation is voluntary. You do not have to participate and may stop your participation at any time. Withdrawing from this study will not affect the relationship you have, if any, with the faculty or researcher.
Confidentiality: Even if we publish the findings from this study, we will keep your information private and confidential. Anyone with authority to look at your records must keep them confidential.
What is the purpose of the research?
The purpose of this research is to gauge the career readiness of students at the Neeley college upon graduation. Research indicates that students are not ready for their careers upon graduation. We will be using a proven research-based career readiness assessment by National Association of Colleges and Employers (NACE) as well as a learning and development platform CareerReady.Ai to collect the data. The data collected will provide a benchmark of Neeley students on eight career readiness competencies which are Teamwork, Problem Solving, Professionalism, Leadership, Digital Application, Communications, Intercultural Fluency and Career Management.
Students will also be able to use the Career Ready platform for analytics that will provide them with personalized results of the data collected to identify strengths and areas of improvement. Researchers will be able to analyze the data gathered to identify areas for improvement in our teaching pedagogies as well as the competencies that the higher education and students need to focus on for career readiness upon graduation.
What are the risks for participating in this study and how will they be minimized?
We don't believe there are any risks from participating in this research that are different from risk that you encounter in everyday life.
What is my involvement for participating in this study?
The total duration for the data collection of this study is anticipated to be from two to ten weeks. We expect your participation to take about 10 to 15 minutes to complete a Career Readiness self-assessment on the CareerReady.AI platform. The students that volunteer to provide qualitative feedback via interviews may be recorded. The interview time will not exceed one hour in duration. The recording will be done on Zoom , provided by TCU and conducted in person or remote. Only the researchers will have access to the recording and will be deleted once the qualitative feedback has been coded or at the one year anniversary of the recording.
Are there any alternatives and can I withdraw?
You do not have to participate in this research study.
You should only take part in this study if you want to volunteer. You should not feel that there is any pressure to take part in the study. You are free to participate in this research or withdraw at any time by reaching out to one of the investigators via email at l.meade@tcu.edu or by reaching out to the CareerReady Help Desk via the https://careerready360.com/contact-us/ and requesting to be removed from the study.
What are the benefits of participating in this study?
You might benefit from being in this study because you will be completing an assessment for yourself on career readiness before your graduation. The results of the assessment may help you understand your career readiness strengths and areas for improvement before graduation.
The results of this study will also help researchers to identify focus areas for university faculty and staff to help students be better career ready upon graduation and you can potentially benefit from this improvement also.
Will I be compensated for participating in this study?
There is no compensation offered to be part of this study for your participation.
What are my costs to participate in the study?
There are no costs to participate in the study.
Is there any conflict of interest?
Dr. Zain Ali is the founder of Sunbonn, the company that developed CareerReady.AI platform. The platform is based on Dr. Ali’s PhD research work on leadership development. CareerReady.Ai is available to researchers at educational institutions for research purposes at no cost.
How will my confidentiality be protected?
Every effort will be made to limit the use and disclosure of your personal information, including research study records, to people who have a need to review this information. We cannot promise complete secrecy. Your records may be reviewed by authorized University personnel or other individuals who will be bound by the same provisions of confidentiality including Sunbonn employees (CareerReady.AI) owners.
Your identifiers might be removed from your private records or your samples. Your information or samples could be used and/or distributed to another investigator for future research studies without additional consent from you or your Legally Authorized Representative. We may publish what we learn from this study. If we do, we will not include your name. We will not publish anything that would let people know who you are.
What will happen to the information collected about me after the study is over?
We will keep your research data to use for future research or other purpose. Your name and other information that can directly identify you will be deleted from the research data collected as part of the project. We may share your research data with other investigators without asking for your consent again, but it will not contain information that could directly identify you.
Who should I contact if I have questions regarding the study or concerns regarding my rights as a study participant?
You can contact Dr. Zain Ali or Dr. Laura Meade at
z.ali@tcu.edu and
(817) 257 7186 or
l.meade@tcu.edu and
817-257-7036 with any questions that you have about the study.
Dr. Brie Diamond, Chair, TCU Institutional Review Board, (817) 257-6152, b.diamond@tcu.edu; or Dr. Floyd Wormley, Associate Provost of Research, research@tcu.edu. For more information, please visit our website: https://research.tcu.edu/research-compliance/irb/for-research-participants/.
