academic skills in higher education

The importance of study skills in HE for learners to enhance and develop their studies further

B y   Giedrius   Zilionis ,   Senior  Business  Lecturer   and  Alexander Kaiser ,   Health  Lecturer

Study skills are some of the most essential academic tools in Higher Education. All learners have different skills and sometimes these are not fully recognised or developed – simply because, ironically, study skills are not implemented.  By effectively using study skills, learners can discover hidden talents and how well these can be of benefit to them during their studies and beyond.

Benefits of academic skills

There are discussions as to whether or not academic skills should be prioritised in the teaching of undergraduate students, since employers argue that many students are not equipped with the job-related skills that are needed, even after 3 years of degree education (Menz, 2021).  However, according to Hermida (2009) most first-year students lack necessary basic academic skills such as reading, because academic reading differs greatly from the reading that is undertaken in Secondary Education.  Students need to learn academic language and familiarise themselves with the key contributors to their respective fields. Others such as Blades and Gibb (2012) argue that academic skills such as taking responsibility, undertaking research and communicating findings are important when it comes to employability.

Why do we need skills?

Skills are necessary for every aspect of human life. These skills allow us to do something right and well. Skills are learned and developed in academia and work practices. Simply, if a student develops skills well in a particular field they can become an expert in it. Students start learning some key skills at the beginning of their degree which will help them later in their professional life, career and opportunities. Students will have more confidence, motivation, engagement and achieve goals. Therefore, using a skill-based approach can help students grasp concepts faster and strengthen what they already know (Podareducation, 2021.)

Below are additional essential skills that will help students thrive instead of ‘survive’ at LSST.

Transferable skills

In general, transferrable skills are referred to as skills that can be used in a variety of situations. Transferrable skills include basic skills such as literacy and numeracy skills but also extend to what some authors call “employability skills”. These skills are those which provide students with the skills to enhance their chances of getting employed. This includes skills that are non-job-specific (Blades and Gibb, 2012). A large part of employability depends on language efficiency, digital competence as well as social skills and social awareness (Nägele, Stadler, 2017).

This is why at LSST, students are encouraged to begin their development of these skills from the start of their programme where respective modules allow students to develop their academic skills while focusing on a range of challenges that help develop employability skills. For example, students need to familiarise themselves with IT systems, work in multi-cultural groups and come to know about how to learn efficiently. Particularly, group work allows students to explore their leadership skills, time-management skills and sometimes conflict management is needed. Further, students are supported by the academic team to do all these things in a stimulating and safe environment. They are constantly instructed to attempt tasks that lie just outside their abilities before they are assisted to hone their skills.

Digital skills

This digital and technology-driven world requires students to learn digital skills. Degrees are one of the starting points where learners can start or improve their digital skills intensely. Students must use some digital skills during their studies, such as information/data literacy (browsing, searching, and evaluating data); communication and collaboration (interaction via ICT, emails, chats, blogs); digital content creation (programming and copyrights licensing); and problem-solving (technical problems identifying and solving). See CEDEFOP (2021).

Developing and maintaining digital skills is vital in today’s teaching and learning process. Students can enhance their digital skills through learning – online and activities in class. It is essential to learn digital skills from L3 at LSST digital skills usage will lead learners throughout their studies and personal lives.

As educators, we have to support students to recognise the importance of digital skills in the classroom to assister their learning and their employability - and encourage them to build the confidence to transfer their skills to multiple contexts.  Digital skills enable educators and learners to move forward in their professional careers. The importance of skills is necessary for every aspect of human being life. The skills allow us to do something right and well.

Students that start learning and practising key study skills at the beginning of their degree will have more confidence, motivation, engagement and achieve more goals. Therefore, using a skill-based approach can help students grasp concepts faster and strengthen what they already know (Podareducation, 2021.) Learning and improving current skills makes students better communicators too.

Computer skills

Unlike digital skills, computer user skills are those basic skills that are needed to use computers generally.  Computer skills are needed at LSST to assess course material, search for information and access online libraries. Basic computer skills are also needed to write assignments and can be beneficial to stay in touch with lecturers and other students, for example for sharing ideas and formulating opinions. Efficient use of email is essential in today’s world. Some students, may not have all of the required skills yet. Further, research shows that non-traditional students often tend to put in more effort to compensate for this initial lack of skills (Henson, 2013).

All modern businesses are reliant on the efficient computer skills of their employees. Computers are not only used by businesses around the world to complete tasks but are also essential in a fast-moving world as they can be used to plan and organise a variety of tasks more efficiently in a world in which job tasks become more and more versatile. At LSST students have access to IT equipment and can make use of academic support services which may help with the development of IT skills.

Literacy skills

Literacy is the ability to read, write, speak, and listen in a way that lets us communicate effectively and make sense of the world. According to Unesco (2020), 14% of adults still lack basic literacy skills globally.

In England, 1 in 7 adults, roughly 5.1 million, lack basic literacy skills. England is the only developed country where the literacy and numeracy levels of 16-24 years old are worse than those at 55-65 years old.  43% of adults 16-years and older read at or below the basic level . Their skills are limited to understanding short, simple texts and one-step math problems. (Seedsofliteracy.org, 2015).

Many adults want to improve their literacy skills to get higher-paying jobs. Acquiring stronger literacy skills can open up new careers and often lead to work promotions. Sometimes motivation comes from children who are learning to read themselves.

Improving literacy skills is vital. At LSST, we have several modules such as Preparing for Success, Knowledge and Creativity; Self-development and Responsibility, and Inquiry Based Learning, where students learn the literacy skills to enhance their academic performance further and progress to the next level. Students learn, read, write, present, communicate, and reflect skills during their studies. Regardless of the skills students are needed, lacking  literacy skills  holds a person back at every stage of their life.

Self-development skills

To best support students, it is imperative to understand their motivation to study in Higher Education. More students than ever are beginning to study after a prolonged period of employment (Rozvadska, Novotny, 2019). As opposed to traditional students, non-traditional students more often state financial concerns as motivating factors for studying. They also often are more concerned about academic issues than their traditional counterparts. Further, social issues, such as lack of confidence appear to be more prevalent with non-traditional students (Taylor, House, 2010). In practice, it is important to support students at LSST in a variety of ways. They should be confident that they receive necessary financial support before commencing their studies but it is also important to teach skills that increase self-confidence, such as time-management skills and organisational skills. It has been shown that positive teaching is effective in student empowerment (e.g. Joseph, Murphy, Holford, 2020). As a result, LSST adopts a facility of teachers as facilitators rather than directional teachers, where possible. Students are supported in class but also have access to resources that are designed to support students with social issues as well as financial issues. For example, students are assigned a personal academic tutor, can receive guidance on mental health and can be supported by a dedicated academic support team.

In conclusion, study skills are a fundamental part of academic, professional and personal development. Furthermore, learners can develop these skills at LSST in conjunction with their experience. Additionally, enthusiasm to study and learn skills enhances student confidence and self-assurance. We must all work together to further improve student study skills and learning strategies by making our teaching and learning even more effective and successful.

How to reference this article

Zilionis, G. and Kaiser, A. G.  (2022). The importance of study skills in HE for learners to enhance and develop their studies further in academia . Available at:  https://www.lsst.ac/blogs/ [Note: Please add accessed date here].

Blades, R., Fauth, B., Gibb, J. (2012). ‘ Measuring employability skills. A rapid review to inform development of tools for project evaluation’ . National Children’s Bureau. London.

CEDEFOP. (2021).  Digital skills: Challenges and opportunities . [online] Available at: https://www.cedefop.europa.eu/en/data-insights/digital-skills-challenges-and-opportunities . [Accessed 7 Feb. 2022].

Henson, A.R. (2013). ‘The impact of Computer Efficacy on the Success of the Nontraditional Community College Student’. Dissertations , 301.

Hermida, J. (2009). ‘ The Importance of Teaching Academic Reading Skills in First-Year University Courses . Available at: https://ssrn.com/abstract=1419247 [Accessed 7 Feb. 2022].

Menz, M. (2020). ‘Integrating Academic Skills and Employability’. Journal of Research in Higher Education . 4(2), 5-17 doi: 10.24193/JRHE.2020.2.1

Joseph, S., Murphy, D., Holford, J. (2020). ‘Positive education: A new look at Freedom to Learn. Oxford Review of Education , 46(5). 549-562

Nägele, C., Stadler, B.E. (2017). ‘Competence and the Need for Transferable Skills’ in Competence- based Vocational and Professional Education, Springer International Publishing, Switzerland

Rozvadská, K., Novotný, P. (2019). The Structure of non-traditional students’ motives for entering higher education. Open Journal per la formazione in rete . 19(2). 133-148

Seedsofliteracy.org, (2015). The Importance of Adult Literacy | Seeds of Literacy . [online] Available at: https://www.seedsofliteracy.org/the-importance-of-adult-literacy/ [Accessed 7 Feb. 2022].

Podareducation.org. (2021).  Importance of Skill Development Curriculum in School | Podar Blogs . [online] Available at: https://www.podareducation.org/blog-importance-of-skill-development-curriculum-in-school [Accessed 1 Feb. 2022].

Taylor, J., House, B. (2010). ‘An Exploration of Identity, Motivations and Concerns of Non-Traditional Students at Different Stages of Higher Education’ Psychology Teaching Review . 16(1). 46-57

Unesco.org. (2020). 14 per cent of adults worldwide still lack basic literacy skills, UNESCO report finds | UIL . [online] Available at: https://uil.unesco.org/literacy/14-cent-adults-worldwide-still-lack-basic-literacy-skills-unesco-report-finds . [Accessed 7 Feb. 2022].

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20 of the most important academic skills you need for university

University is a place where students are expected to develop a set of academic skills that will help them succeed in their future careers. While it’s true that every university degree has its own unique set of requirements, there are some academic skills that are essential for success in any course. So if you’re wondering which are the most important academic skills to have at university, take a look at our list (as well as how to develop them).

1. Time management

Time management is arguably one of the most important academic skills that students must develop to be successful in university. Students are expected to juggle multiple courses, assignments, and extracurricular activities, not to mention completing everything on time. Meeting deadlines is critical to good grades, as you may be penalised for late assignments, such as capped grades. Therefore, if you work on time management, which includes setting priorities, creating a schedule, and breaking tasks down into smaller, manageable chunks, you’ll probably find everything a little easier.

2. Research skills

It might not seem like you need research skills unless you’re doing a science degree, but you’ll likely need them for a dissertation. From finding relevant sources to critically analysing them to synthesising information, research skills are important. Good research skills also involve knowing how to use different databases, search engines, and citation styles.

3. Writing skills

In addition to research, you’ll no doubt be writing up assignments at some point. So one of the most important skills for university is writing. It’s not simply putting pen to paper, or fingertips to keypad, but it’s the quality of what you write. You’ll need to write concisely, critically and with an academic tone. You’ll also need to be able to organise information into a logical and coherent structure, using evidence to support arguments.

4. Critical thinking skills

To analyse and evaluate information critically, students need to develop critical thinking skills. It involves questioning assumptions, evaluating evidence, and drawing conclusions based on evidence. Developing good critical thinking skills requires recognising biases and assumptions, considering alternative perspectives, and applying logic and reasoning to solve problems. According to the University of Essex , not only is critical thinking an important skill for uni, but the workplace too.

5. Communication

As you navigate through university, you’ll need to be able to interact with lecturers, classmates, flatmates and lots of other people. Strong communication skills involve not only the ability to express oneself clearly and concisely in both verbal and written formats but also active listening and collaboration with others. You’ll no doubt have group projects or have to work with others, so communication here is important. Here’s some tips from a Professor on how to email your lecturer the right way .

6. Study skills 

Knowing how to study, or revise, or cram, is a great tool to have – but it’s also individual. There might be a better time of day that suits you, or you might prefer to do bulk studying last minute. Some good tips on developing study skills involve setting goals, creating a study schedule, and using effective study strategies such as note-taking, summarising, and self-testing. Overall, finding what works for you is the best approach – just don’t avoid studying completely.

7. Digital literacy

One of the most important academic skills for university is digital literacy. In order to succeed academically, students must be proficient in using technology to access and assess information, collaborate with peers, and complete coursework. A lot of the information for classes are also online, on platforms like Moodle, so being able to navigate these will definitely be helpful. Don’t worry if tech isn’t your thing though, there will be lots of courses at your uni to help you out.

8. Problem-solving skills

Problem-solving skills are essential for university, but also for living alone for the first time. You’ll have to think for yourself a lot, which can be quite empowering. For your degree, being able to problem solve is also important as you’ll likely need to use it in assignments. They often involve identifying the problem, developing and implementing a solution, and evaluating the results.

9. Adaptability

Life at uni will throw all sorts of curveballs, so it’s good to demonstrate adaptability. These can be changes in courses, programmes, and the academic environment, as well as outside of uni. Being adaptable will help you navigate these, as well as being able to learn from failures, being open to new ideas and approaches, and being willing to take on new challenges.

10. Self-motivation

University is totally different from school and college. It’s a lot more independent, meaning you’ll have to keep yourself on track. But it’s generally a lot more fun too, as you’ll be learning about something that interests you for your future career. So you’ll need a lot of self-motivation, another important academic skill for university. You’ll need to able to motivate yourself to complete assignments and projects, and keeping your attendance levels high – even when you’ve got a hangover. Some tips to stay motivated include setting goals, breaking tasks down into smaller, manageable chunks, and rewarding accomplishments.

11. Active listening

Active listening involves giving full attention to the speaker, asking clarifying questions, and being able to summarise and reflect on what was said. It’s very easy to spend lectures day dreaming or planning you next night out, but it’s not going to help you get that essay written. An academic paper on active listening recommended tips, such as note taking, making associations and analogies, asking questions, integrating information, making inferences, attending on time, sitting at the front and so on.

12. Critical reading

The ability to critically read written materials is a fundamental academic skill that university students must acquire. Critical reading requires analysing and evaluating various forms of written material, such as textbooks, research articles, and other academic sources. Developing good critical reading skills involves comprehending the author’s intentions and arguments, identifying any biases or assumptions present in the text, and evaluating the credibility and quality of the evidence presented.

13. Presentation skills

Not every university course requires you to do presentations, but it’s likely that at some point in your career you’ll need to ‘present’ something. It can be a great boost of confidence to be able to speak to others about your work or idea. It also allows you to think about things more deeply, so you can explain them to others.  Presentation skills require students to communicate their ideas effectively in front of an audience, which means organising ideas and delivering the message clearly and confidently.

14. Teamwork

One of the most important academic skills for university and for life generally is working as a team. From group projects to sorting out bills in rented student houses, you’ll need to know how to work with others while at uni. Good teamwork skills involve effective communication, active listening, understanding and respecting diverse perspectives, and being able to contribute to the team’s goals.

15. Numeracy skills

Maths is definitely not everyone’s strong suit. But basic numeracy skills are important for students on courses that involve quantitative analysis, such as mathematics, science, and economics. But other subjects will also require a degree of numeracy skill, where you might need to use SPSS, Jamovi or other statistical software to analyse research. Usually, universities have workshops which will allow you to develop these skills with extra help, so don’t worry if numbers scare you!

16. Self-reflection

Self-reflection is an important academic skill for university that allows students to assess their own learning and development. It involves reflecting on your own strengths and weaknesses, identifying areas for improvement, and setting goals for personal growth. Journalling is a popular way of doing this, but you can also find other methods.

17. Emotional intelligence

Having high emotional intelligence can help you deal with the ups and downs of student life. University is exciting, but it can also be an emotional or anxious time. This is where emotional intelligence can help. Knowing how to manage your own emotions and understand the emotions of others is important, especially in emotionally charged situations.

18. Cultural competence

At university, you’ll likely be going to classes full of people with different backgrounds, ethnicities, cultures and perspectives. So having cultural competence is a requirement for uni. Cultural competence is a crucial academic skill that enables students to engage with people from diverse cultural backgrounds in an effective and respectful manner. It requires understanding and valuing different cultural norms, values, and beliefs, and the ability to communicate and collaborate effectively across cultural boundaries. It requires ongoing learning, self-reflection, and a commitment to challenging cultural biases and promoting diversity and inclusion.

19. Networking

To begin with, networking involves identifying and engaging with people who have relevant knowledge and expertise in the student’s field of study. It can help you find opportunities and really get involved in the field you want to develop a career in. You can start with talking to your tutors and attending university events, which will let you liaise with staff working in your industry.

20. Entrepreneurship

If you want to make it as a millionaire, start developing your entrepreneurial skills now! Entrepreneurship is an important academic skill that can make university even more interesting. You’ll need to develop creative thinking and innovation, and think about solving problems. If you want to read about how some entrepreneurs made their huge net worth, check out our article on Steven Bartlett .

Last Updated on March 20, 2024

Published on August 2, 2023

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• What Are The 6 Essential Skills For University Students?

Last Updated: 30th June 2021

Author: Rob Needleman

Table of Contents

During your time at university, you will develop valuable, transferable study skills that will support your learning, testing and future career.

Attending a university is an exciting time for students to live independently away from home and to further develop their academic skills from studying at school. The huge step-up from your final years of school makes developing your academic skills mandatory to stay on track and become a successful, high achieving student.

You will develop the skills during your time at university but building a solid foundation now will make the transition from school to higher education much smoother. The graphic below shows the skills we cover in this article. Read on to learn the skills that will help you thrive instead of survive at university. 

Academic Writing Skills

At university, academic writing is a skill students use each day. A must for all degrees is a strong grasp of the English language (international students or not). Being able to write to a good standard is key for coursework assignments such as dissertations and lab reports as well as during exams, answering longer written answers and essay questions.

You are expected to build on what you learnt at A-levels where instead of outlining a point, you have to be able to argue it using appropriate formal language matching the writing style of academic research. If spelling and grammar is an issue for you, it is time to put the work in before you start your degree as lecturers will not appreciate reading an essay that is full of grammatical errors and misspelt words.

You will also be expected to know how to structure your essays   or at least learn how to early on. Your essay content might be unbelievable, but if you cannot present your arguments in a clear and logical way, then you are likely to lose marks.

Referencing and Plagiarism

Two words students fear at the start and learn to manage throughout their studies. When discussing research by other authors, you must acknowledge their work through referencing. This will demonstrate to the reader and/or examiner the quality of your sources and the depth of your research and referencing will also allow the reader to visit the original sources for the complete research. You will come across multiple referencing styles throughout university such as Harvard, MLA, APA etc. but you will probably focus on one main style.  

Plagiarism is something you’ll get used to quickly and have to get used to quickly. There is no copy and pasting information directly into your writing anymore. Paraphrasing is also not enough to avoid plagiarism too, you must always reference the material you used. The same goes with collaborating with students and writing the same or very similar content as your friends. Universities now use software that will inform you and the examiner of the similarity that your writing has with other sources, such as fellow students, research papers and website content like blog posts. You will lose significant marks if you get caught and you will end up in a not so friendly meeting with university staff.

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Critical Thinking Skills

Critical thinking is a skill defined by thinking clearly, rationally and being able to recognise and understand good arguments and then create an assessment from the evidence presented to you. Most students find it difficult at first to initially criticise the experts in the field such as authors of ground-breaking research or even their lecturers. However, this is not being disrespectful or rude, this is essential as long as you back up your arguments with solid and explained evidence. 

Likewise, during your own research, you must be able to think critically about your own work. Ask yourself questions like: did I have a large enough sample size, was I unconsciously biased and am I interpreting my data correctly?

An example of critical thinking is identifying biases . This is a tricky skill but vital for research and incredibly transferable. A sign of a good critical thinker is being able to evaluate information objectively. Setting aside your own personal biases is not easy and identifying the biases from other parties is hard too, but it is necessary to understand different viewpoints. 

Time management Skills

“Prior Proper Planning Prevents Poor Performance”, you’ve likely heard this before but it is completely true. Effective time management is essential for university and it is something that will stay with you when you graduate. 

Time will become very valuable when lectures begin and the assignments start piling up. The way to cope with less time and a larger workload is through managing your time more effectively. It is completely normal to become overwhelmed when you first start university. Do not worry if you find this, it is now the time to start implementing time management strategies to stay on track and prevent yourself from becoming overly stressed.

Our advice is to plan ahead and make sure you are completely aware of deadlines. The key to planning ahead is to be realistic. You will hear stories from coursemates that declare that they can finish a 3,000-word essay the night before the due date and will start revising the morning of the exam. This might be true for some rare students but mostly this is rubbish. Give yourself plenty of time to finish each assignment to a high level and do not set yourself up for failure. Having one month to write an essay does not mean you need to spend a month doing it or then writing it the week before the due date, plan the time for it properly. 

Prioritising will help you greatly. We found the Eisenhower Matrix useful at university and we will work through an example together:

Use of the most important tasks (MITs) will help you significantly. The MIT will be your main focus that day and you will not shift your focus from it unless it is completely necessary. An MIT at university may be to create and practise a presentation to present to your coursemates next week. You will focus solely on creating and preparing for the presentation and park your lab report that is not due in for 2 weeks.

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Reading skills

Like writing, reading will dominate your time at university.

It is important to develop effective reading techniques to improve your speed and to choose the right content to read. When finding reading materials, as part of your active academic reading, there are questions to ask yourself to determine if it is relevant to you:

• Why am I reading this?
• Which sections will be valuable for me?
• How will I benefit from reading this?
• Start Wider Reading with our comprehensive reading lists

There are also different approaches to academic reading depending on the medium, for example, a blog on the qualities of a good doctor or an academic paper on the most effective approaches to cognitive diagnosis. Aston University suggests the following reading techniques: 

Skimming, Scanning and Critical Reading:

Skimming entails looking through text to create a general impression of the content. When skim reading, the reader does not read every word or a paragraph in-depth. Instead, the reader skims the introduction and conclusion of a book, the abstract of a paper and the opening and closing paragraph of a chapter. The aim is to form an impression and then decide if it is worth reading on in more depth.

Scanning is all about looking for a particular piece of information such as data to support or disprove your hypothesis. Whilst scanning, you ignore the content that is not relevant to you and you keep your goal of finding a particular piece of information in the forefront of your mind. This will help the words or images stand out when you run your eyes across the page. Like skimming, this technique will support your decision making of reading the text in-depth or choosing a different text to look through.

Personally, we found skim reading and scanning particularly important when trawling through hundreds of papers for our literature review dissertations in final year. It saved hours of reading less relevant information and the more we used this technique, the faster and more effective we became, so practising frequently will save you a lot of time when you start your own degree.

Critical reading, similar to critical thinking is ensuring you continually analyse, question and evaluate the information in front of you. The Open University  list some useful questions to ask yourself whilst reviewing a text:

• Who is speaking or writing?
• What is their point of view or perspective?
• What ideas and information are presented and how were they obtained?
• Are there unsupported assertions?
• Is the method used to find the evidence sound?
• Is the evidence correct or valid?
• What is fact and what is opinion?
• Are there unreasonable generalisations?
• Is the conclusion reasonable?
• What other perspectives or points of view could there be?

Note-taking skills

You must take notes during tutorials and lectures. The lecturers will provide useful information that will be essential when it comes to exam revision. Some lecturers will speak quickly so try to write very brief notes on what they are saying rather than fall behind writing everything they say. After a lecture has finished, add any comments and fill any gaps in your notes from the presentation slides posted online so that your notes are ready to be used for revision.

Communication Skills

Your student life will not just be reading and writing. University studies will also develop your communication skills. There will be many opportunities for working in teams, a great transferable skill that will look great on your CV. This can occur in group presentations, group projects and lab work. Hopefully, you will also have the opportunity to practice public speaking as we did each year. 

From day one of first year, you will be conversing with senior academics which you may find intimidating. They are experts in the field you are interested in so use the opportunity to ask questions and discuss aspects of your degree, or something you learnt from wider reading that you found fascinating. Make sure you go to your tutorials or supervisions prepared with the work set by tutors, but also with any extra questions you may have.

Attending university will open many doors for you, especially if you are proactive. One of the best ways of doing this is through networking. You will develop strong working and social relationships with your coursemates which is brilliant, but do not overlook the opportunities you have from the senior academics at the university. They themselves will have a bountiful supply of contacts, whether this is for help with your thesis, to gain some data or quotes, or to aid your job searching strategy. 

The key to effective networking is being a good listener, being confident, preparing what you might say and then following up properly after speaking to someone. We are not suggesting leaving business cards with the Economics Senior Lecturer, but asking to connect on LinkedIn and emailing them 48-72 hours after meeting them with an engaging email will go a long way.

Less academic skills and other Soft Skills

We have already mentioned some soft skills in this article such as communication and time management but in this section, we will focus on the less academic skills which are still important for university and life after graduation. 

A crucial skill is being able to budget and manage your finances effectively. Our number one tip is to make use of spreadsheets. They are not the most exciting way to spend your time but very helpful at keeping track of your spending. Like with time management, the key is to be realistic. Spending will be more than you probably expect and your location will affect this. Consider everything from rent to shopping and from drinks on nights out, to textbooks and stationery. Make sure you have a weekly limit on how much you can spend and try to follow this.

Living costs vary across the UK and it is something that catches a lot of students out. You can budget for university, but if you do not budget for the area you will be living in, this can make for a nasty surprise. For example, using the ‘metric’ of a cost of a pint of beer, in Lancaster, a pint can cost around £2.80 but in London, you can expect from £5.20 upwards. Accommodation tends to differ in price across universities so make sure the accommodation is within your budget. You can see the variation in prices in the table below:

Cooking and home skills sound rather strange whilst discussing academic skills but they will be a large part of your time away from studies. Each one of us at UniAdmissions has met a student who did not know how to use a washing machine or couldn’t open a tin of beans, you’ll meet these students too. Learn some staple recipes that are easy to master, such as spaghetti Bolognese and chilli con carne at home before you leave for university. Nutrition goes hand in hand with effective learning and studying, support your academic life by eating properly each day.  

Lastly, self-motivation is a constant theme at university. It will become apparent on a sunny Saturday afternoon when you have two essays due the following week, 5,000 words to write and then you receive a text asking if you would like to go to the beach or play football in the park. 

University life is unstructured which makes motivation important to keep yourself on track and to avoid falling into the cycle of trying to catch up each week. As we discussed in time management, having a good plan will help you stay focused on your goals. Sometimes, setting yourself up in the library away from distractions will help avoid the temptations of a sunny afternoon. Finally, make sure you build in time for leisure activities and reward your hard work!

Final Words

We have covered the essential skills for university including academic reading and time management. You have time to start working on these skills now before you start your degree, to make your transition from school to university much smoother. Your time at university will be great fun but make sure you use the opportunities around you to open every door possible and leave as the best graduate you can be.

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5 Strategies for Academic Success: Using Your Strengths

These five tips show you how to keep a clear head and have a successful semester.

Rebecca Bakken

The start of the semester can be a hectic time. You’re juggling your career, classes, family, and friends. Deb Levy , a certified life and business coach, and a Harvard Extension career workshop leader, offers five tips in this video to help you succeed in your coursework.

Know your strengths.

It’s human nature to want to correct weaknesses. But knowing your strengths and how to use them effectively can have a much more substantial effect on success and well-being. So how can you reframe your thinking?

According to Deb Levy, the field of positive psychology offers many useful tools. One in particular—the Character Strengths Test from VIA Institute on Character—can help you gauge your strengths and weaknesses. The test ranks users’ character strengths from strongest to weakest, allowing for an objective view into where you excel and where you may need work.

Once you know what your strengths are, you can play to them. But it’s also important to know that sometimes strengths need to be tempered.

“Every strength if overused becomes a deficit,” says Levy.

For instance, someone who ranks highly in humor might run the risk of making an insensitive or inappropriate comment that could damage relationships.

Making a plan to bolster weaknesses while remaining conscious of strengths can be a great strategy to ensure not just academic success, but personal fulfillment.

Set specific goals.

Achieving your goals depends heavily on how well you can manage your time. Levy recommends making a priority pie that maps out how you’ll divide your time over the course of a semester.

“When you say yes to becoming a student, you have to say no to other things,” she says. “So goal-setting requires a strategic plan for the semester. Students who do better in general are the ones who take time to plan.”

Your priority pie should reflect all your personal, professional, and academic endeavors. For example:

Your priority pie should include not just classes and your work day, but also time for family, studying and homework, and self-care like going to the gym or getting a regular massage.

Levy stresses that the best goals are specific, personal, and flexible.

Prioritize happiness.

Feeling good about what you’re doing and why you’re doing it is the best way to ensure success. According to Levy, happiness often leads to success, but success on its own may not lead to happiness.

As such, prioritizing your own wellness is key to reaching your goals. Levy says well-being  consists of positive emotions, engagement, meaning, and achievement.

“By nature of being in school people are already prioritizing well-being. They’re getting engaged, working on accomplishments,” says Levy.

Read our blog post on work-life balance

Aside from making time for yourself, you can practice building positivity.

One exercise that Levy recommends is writing down three good things at the end of each day. These can be things you’re proud of, things you’re grateful for, or things that simply bring a smile to your face.

Studying subjects that give your life purpose or meaning can also be beneficial.

“People who connect meaning to their goals are more motivated,” says Levy

Be resilient.

Even with a good plan, obstacles will arise. How well you deal with those obstacles depends on your perspective.

In resilience coaching, Levy often refers to the work of psychologist Carol Dweck. Her research identifies two basic mindsets: fixed and growth. Fixed mindsets view mistakes or setbacks as insurmountable. Growth mindsets view them as opportunities for positive change.

If you lean toward a fixed mindset, the good news is that it’s not permanent. No one falls into one mindset 100 percent of the time. Training your brain to see opportunity where you once saw a roadblock is possible.

“Give yourself permission to be human,” Levy says. “Predict you’re going to make mistakes.”

One way to build resilience is by preparing for obstacles with implementation intentions , which are if–then plans designed to help people achieve goals. For example, “If I can’t get the financial aid I need, then I will reallocate money from my vacation or entertainment budgets.”

Setting these intentions gives you a default answer that helps you stick to your plan without having to deliberate or make a snap decision.

Have questions? Contact our Enrollment Services team

Make time to recover.

Rather than avoiding stress altogether, Levy recommends setting aside time to mentally and physically recover.

As a student, you may sometimes fall into a “stretch zone,” where you’re extending yourself to accommodate for different obligations. Periods of stress can actually be positive and motivating if they expand your perception of what’s possible.

But it can lead to chronic stress when you don’t build in time to recover.

Viewing your eight hours of sleep every night as sacrosanct can go a long way toward staving off chronic stress. So before you pull another all-nighter, think about the effects it may have on you the next day.

Taking breaks, setting aside time for meals, and enjoying recreation can help fuel you and keep you on course to achieve your goals.

For more information from Deb Levy on balancing academics with life, check out How to Set Goals and Achieve Balance—In and Outside the Classroom .

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Using Academic Skills to Improve Teaching

• First Online: 01 January 2024

Cite this chapter

• Sally Ashton-Hay 4 &
• Naomi Doncaster 4  

137 Accesses

Student success and retention in higher education are becoming increasingly important and the need for learning support for diverse students is also crucial. This chapter reports on a study investigating whether attendance at Academic Skills consultations over a 3-year period made any difference in student performance, success, Grade Point Average (GPA) and attrition within the context of a regional university in Australia. Over 13,000 student consultations with Academic Skills in 2017, 2018 and 2019 were matched in the University Management Information System to allow derivation of metrics. Study findings reveal that students who consulted with Academic Skills performed better than those who did not attend consultations and the difference was greater for those who attended more consultations. Student GPA was also higher and significantly more students were retained and completed their studies as a result of individual academic language and learning support consultations. These results demonstrate a positive and significant impact from individualised assessment consultations, although many other factors may also be influential so the results are interpreted with some caution. This chapter nonetheless supports the positive impact of focused academic language and learning support on student outcomes, especially for new students, via an enhanced learning experience. Although one-on-one consultations can be an effective approach, more collaborative team teaching with content lecturers and language and learning specialists could further contribute to improving teaching practice, student success and retention at the tertiary level of learning.

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Thank you to the University Office of Planning, Quality and Review for assistance with tracking students and following up with derivation of metrics.

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Ashton-Hay, S., Doncaster, N. (2023). Using Academic Skills to Improve Teaching. In: Lynch, D., Yeigh, T., Boyd, W. (eds) Re-imagining Teaching Improvement. Springer, Singapore. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-99-7746-8_11

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Academic Writing 

Ucl writing support and resources .

• UCL Academic Communication Centre  offers tutorials, workshops, courses, webinars, writing retreats and asynchronous resources to support students across UCL with their writing.
• IOE Academic Writing Centre  provides tutorials, webinars and online resources to IOE students.
• Students’ Union UCL Language + Writing  peer-to-peer support for students with English as an additional language.
• UCL’s Survey of English Usage  produces apps on academic writing (free), spelling and punctuation (free) and grammar (various costs).
• UCL Student Disability Services  has produced some excellent guides on reading, note-taking, essay writing, revision techniques and time management.
• Academic Integrity  at UCL provides guidance on areas such as referencing conventions.
• UCL also has a licence for   LinkedIn Learning,  the online video training provider. LinkedIn Learning has several short courses on writing, such as writing in plain English.

External Writing Resources 

• Guide to writing essays, the Royal Literary Fund.
• Guide to writing dissertations, the Royal Literary Fund.
• How to write in Plain English,  the Plain English Campaign (pdf).
• Essay and Report Writing Skills Course, The Open University (free course).
• Writing What You Know , The Open University (free course).
• Writing in Plain English , LinkedIn Learning.

Digital Skills 

• Digital Education at UCL Moodle course , supporting you to be a successful digital learner.
• Digital Skills Development , UCL home page to book online and face-to-face courses.
• UCL DigiLearn , A library of online videos covering UCL IT essentials.
• Succeeding in a Digital World Course , The Open University (free course).

Presenting 

• How to give a good (enough) presentation , UCL.
• Creating accessible PowerPoint presentations , UCL Digital Skills Development.
• Talk the Talk , The Open University (free course).
• Delivery Tips for Speaking in Public , LinkedIn Learning.
• Giving a talk or making a presentation : study skills guide from UCL SSEES.
• Giving a presentation : UCL Institute of Archaeology study skills guide.

Finding information, referencing and Plagiarism

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• Kick-starting your literature review , UCL Digital Skills Development.
• References, citations, and avoiding plagiarism , UCL Libguides.
• Referencing and Plagiarism , UCL PDF.
• Reference Management Software , UCL Libguides.
• Academic Integrity  at UCL:  What is Academic Integrity, why is it important, and what happens if you breach it?
• UCL’s notetaking tips .
• UCL Notetaking Techniques Course .
• The Open University How to Take Notes Course .
• The Open University Effective Notetaking Course , LinkedIn Learning.

Critical thinking, reading and writing

• Critical Thinking , The Open University.
• Developing your Thinking Skills , The Open University.
• Critical Thinking, LinkedIn Learning.
• Critical Reading and Writing, UCL.
• How to be a Critical Reader , The Open University.
• Groups and Teamwork , The Open University.
• Working with Diverse Teams , The Open University.
• What's the difference between collaboration and collusion?  UCL Academic Integrity course.

Independent Learning 

• Independent research , Libraryskills@UCL.
• Improving your own learning and performance , The Open University.
• Personal Productivity , LinkedIn Learning UCL playlist.

Research Skills

• Short UCL courses on " Research Skills ".
• Free  research skills courses from the Open University.

• LEARNING SKILLS

Study Skills

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Learning Skills:

• A - Z List of Learning Skills
• What is Learning?
• Learning Approaches
• Learning Styles
• 8 Types of Learning Styles
• Understanding Your Preferences to Aid Learning
• Lifelong Learning
• Decisions to Make Before Applying to University
• Top Tips for Surviving Student Life
• Living Online: Education and Learning
• 8 Ways to Embrace Technology-Based Learning Approaches
• Critical Thinking Skills
• Critical Thinking and Fake News
• Understanding and Addressing Conspiracy Theories
• Critical Analysis
• Top Tips for Study
• Staying Motivated When Studying
• Student Budgeting and Economic Skills
• Getting Organised for Study

Finding Time to Study

• Sources of Information
• Assessing Internet Information
• Using Apps to Support Study

What is Theory?

Styles of Writing

Effective Reading

• Critical Reading
• Note-Taking from Reading
• Note-Taking for Verbal Exchanges

Planning an Essay

• How to Write an Essay
• The Do’s and Don’ts of Essay Writing
• How to Write a Report

Academic Referencing

Assignment Finishing Touches

• Reflecting on Marked Work
• 6 Skills You Learn in School That You Use in Real Life
• Top 10 Tips on How to Study While Working
• Exam Skills

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What are Study Skills?

Study skills are the skills you need to enable you to study and learn efficiently – they are an important set of transferable life skills.

Our pages provide generic study skills advice – appropriate to learners across all disciplines and in different life circumstances: full and part-time students, those returning to education later in life, those engaged in professional development and anybody who wants to learn how to learn effectively. 

Key points about study skills:

You will develop your own personal approach to study and learning in a way that meets your own individual needs. As you develop your study skills you will discover what works for you, and what doesn’t.

Study skills are not subject specific - they are generic and can be used when studying any area. You will, of course, need to understand the concepts, theories and ideas surrounding your specific subject area. To get the most out of your studies, however, you’ll want to develop your study skills.

You need to practise and develop your study skills.   This will increase your awareness of how you study and you’ll become more confident.  Once mastered, study skills will be beneficial throughout your life.

Study skills are not just for students.   Study skills are transferable - you will take them with you beyond your education into new contexts. For example, organisational skills, time management, prioritising, learning how to analyse, problem solving, and the self-discipline that is required to remain motivated.  Study skills relate closely to the type of skills that employers look for.  (See Transferable Skills and Employability Skills for more.)

At SkillsYouNeed we provide quality content on many life skills – and many of these are relevant to studying.

You’ll find two types of study skills pages – pages that directly relate to skills you need for study (such as How to Write an Essay ) and pages that are more general life skills but which are also important to studying (like Active Listening ).

Our Study Skills Pages Include:

Getting Organised to Study

Getting organised is an important first step to effective study.  Our page covers the basic organisation skills you need to consider – fundamentals such as where and when to study and the importance of developing a network of contacts who can help you when you need it.

This page covers some of the basic principles of time management – with reference to study. If you manage your time badly then you will be less productive, which can lead to stress and anxiety. This page will help you by outlining the importance of a personal study timetable and how to set goals and prioritise your time.

Sources of Information for Study

Learn what is meant by, and the importance of, primary, secondary and tertiary documents and how you may source such information in a library or online.

By understanding different writing styles you can put what you read into perspective. This page covers the main writing styles that you are likely to come across, including academic, journal, and journalistic styles.

When studying, it is likely that you will need to read a lot of information – and you will wish to use this time effectively as possible by developing your reading skills. Discover ways that you can engage with your reading, form links, understand opinions and put ideas and research into perspective. In short, develop your reading skills.

Critical Reading and Reading Strategies

This page explains what is meant by critical reading and critical thinking – skills which are fundamental to true learning, personal development and advancement. The page also covers how to develop a personal reading strategy and use SQ3R to help you manage your reading.

Note-Taking

Learning to take notes effectively is not only important to study but also in many other situations, at work and in your personal life.  Develop your note-taking skills with our pages: Note-Taking for Verbal Exchanges and Note-Taking for Reading .

It pays to carefully think about and plan an essay or other piece of written work before you start writing.  This page provides you with a framework for planning which will help ensure your work is relevant, well-constructed and produced efficiently.

Essay Writing

Learn about the processes involved in writing an essay, or other piece of assessed work.  Avoid common mistakes and follow best practice to help ensure that the work you produce is of a high quality.

How to Write a Dissertation or Thesis

Working on a dissertation, thesis or other research project can be the most challenging part of study. Our guide offers practical advice and explains how to work on each part of a research document, including:

• How to Write a Research Proposal
• Ethical Issues in Research
• Researching and Writing a Literature Review
• Writing your Methodology
• Writing up your Results and Discussion

Learning how to reference correctly is vital if you are a student. This page not only covers why you should reference, and what may happen if you don’t, but also includes some detailed guidelines on how to reference different types of materials.

As a learner you will be required to engage with theory, but exactly what is a theory?  A theory is an attempt to provide understanding - theories attempt to answer the question, 'why?' and therefore satisfy our curiosity.  Learn more about theories and how they are usually developed.

Before you submit your assignment for school, university or work, run through a series of final checks.  Avoid potentially embarrassing or costly mistakes and increase the credibility of your work.

Reflecting On Marked Work

This page, for students, encourages you to engage in the feedback you receive from a marker when your work is returned.  Don’t just look at the bottom line, the mark, but understand the comments and feedback and learn from any mistakes.

Revision Skills

Revising for examinations can be a real challenge for many people. Learn and practice some key skills to make your revision time as productive and effective as possible, leaving you better prepared for exams and tests.

Further Reading from Skills You Need

The Skills You Need Guide for Students

Develop the skills you need to make the most of your time as a student.

Our eBooks are ideal for students at all stages of education, school, college and university. They are full of easy-to-follow practical information that will help you to learn more effectively and get better grades.

Other Areas Related to Study

Writing Skills

The writing skills section of SkillsYouNeed includes many other pages that we hope you’ll find useful.

Our pages: Spelling , Grammar and Punctuation for example can help with assignment writing.  You may also find information on our pages: Gender Neutral Writing and Clichés to Avoid useful.

Interpersonal Skills

Interpersonal skills are the skills we use every day to interact with others and many are relevant to effective study.

For example see:  Listening Skills , Problem Solving and Decision Making , Questioning and Types of Questions , Verbal Communication and Effective Speaking .

Personal Skills

Our Personal Skills section covers areas of personal development . 

Useful pages for study include:  Building Confidence and Self-Esteem , Tips for Dealing with Stress , Relaxation Techniques , and Self-Motivation .

Start with: Getting Organised to Study

See also: Employability Skills for Graduates How to Systemize Your Study Develop Your Online Learning Skills and Get More from Your Online Classes

106 Academic Skills Examples

Chris Drew (PhD)

Dr. Chris Drew is the founder of the Helpful Professor. He holds a PhD in education and has published over 20 articles in scholarly journals. He is the former editor of the Journal of Learning Development in Higher Education. [Image Descriptor: Photo of Chris]

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Academic skills are the skills people need in order to succeed in an educational setting. People attending college or university are expected to have well-developed academic skills in order to succeed in their degrees.

Academic skills are not merely cognitive (the ability to think at a higher level). A good student also needs a wide range of soft skills such as organizational and communication skills.

When you develop academic skills , they will not only help you to succeed in your studies. They will also be easily transferrable into a workplace environment. For example, the ability to conduct thorough research may become a daily task throughout your career. As a result, strong academic skills will help you to position yourself well for a good career once you graduate.

Academic Skills Examples

1. Communication Skills : You will be required to communicate in writing as well as orally (and possibly many other ways) in nearly every course you take. Your skill in succinctly communicating what you have learned will be a central way your knowledge will be assessed throughout your studies.

2. Research Skills: This includes being able to find and use relevant sources of information, as well as being able to critically evaluate those sources. Whereas in our daily lives a quick internet search is sufficient, for academic research, you will be required to conduct rigorous research from high-quality and reliable sources.

3. Organizational Skills : Being able to organize your time will be central to your success at university. You will need to be able to keep track of deadlines, study regularly, take multiple courses each semester, and fit all of this around your personal life. To be successful at juggling all of this, you need to be highly organized.

4. Study Skills: If you develop good study habits at the start of your degree, you will find it much easier to succeed. Good study skills include the ability to focus, summarize, take notes, and commit information to memory.

5. Critical Thinking Skills: This includes being able to analyze and critique information rather than simply believing it. To be a good critical thinker, you need to always be reflecting on what you’re observing or reading and considering whether it is logical, reliable, and valid. A critical thinker may also be able to find out of the box solutions to difficult problems (see: problem-solving skills ).

6. Basic Writing Skills : Being able to write clearly and effectively is a necessity at university. When you can communicate thoughts and ideas in a clear and concise manner, you can demonstrate to your teacher that you have strong knowledge of the information.

7. Academic Writing Skills: Over and above basic writing skills, you also need academic writing skills. These are skills that are specific to writing for academic purposes, such as the ability to write logical and clear arguments based on extensive scholarly research.

8. Problem-Solving Skills: At university, you’ll be constantly presented with problems that you will be asked to solve. To do this successfully, you need to be able to brainstorm , troubleshoot, and find creative solutions to challenges.

9. Self-Discipline : You will need to have the self-discipline to stay focused and motivated. Unlike high school, your teacher won’t be watching and guiding you through everything. So, you need to create and stick to a schedule, meet deadlines, and resist distractions.

10. Social Skills: In the 21st Century, social interaction is vitally important as most people work in teams these days. At university, there is a high likelihood you’ll be assessed on your ability to work well in a group, communicate effectively, and resolve conflict.

11. Teamwork Skills: the ability to work effectively as part of a team is an important academic skill. This includes things like being able to collaborate , compromise , and support others.

12. Time Management Skills: With so many tasks to juggle at university, you can’t waste your time at all. Being able to prioritize tasks, set milestones, and focus while studying are essential. Otherwise, you will find yourself forever asking for extensions!

13. Stress Management Skills: There will be times when you have many exams coming up at once. To manage this, you need to remember to follow good stress management practices like getting sufficient exercise and breaking tasks down into chunks.

14. Flexible Thinking Skills: At university, you will be faced with a range of new challenges and problems that will force you to think differently. This includes being able to adapt to change, think creatively, and consider different perspectives.

15. Cultural Competence : The ability to understand and respect different cultures is an important skill in modern multicultural educational settings . This includes things like being aware of one’s own cultural biases, being open to new experiences, and valuing diversity .

16. Global Citizenship: Global citizenship is a buzzword at unviersities. It refers to the ability to think and act in ways that reflect a commitment to global prosperity. This includes things like being environmentally conscious and promoting international social justice.

17. Digital Literacy : In a digital first world, the ability to use technology in a responsible and efficient way is essential. You need to be able to select the best apps for purpose and navigate them efficiently to help you achieve your goals. But at the same time, you need to constantly be aware of online safety and respecting intellectual property rights.

18. Public Speaking Skills: Most university degrees have public speaking components, such as giving speeches to your classmates or participating in debates in seminars. Being able to confidently present your point of view within group settings without bluster is essential.

19. Persistence : Despite this being right down the end toward ‘soft skills’ , persistence is still one of the most essential of skills for students. There will be times when you just want to quit, but getting through those tough times will help you show to yourself that you are a strong person.

20. Paraphrasing : Paraphrasing involves interpreting information and re-presenting it in a unique way. To paraphrase shows genuine understanding rather than simply parroting someone else’s information. It’s essential in all written and oral pieces you submit at university.

21. Leadership: You will sometimes need to show leadership at university, especially when placed in groupwork roles. For example, you might have to take the lead on a project by delegating tasks among the group.

22. Collaboration: Collaboration refers to the ability to come together to share ideas and come up with ideas that were not possible alone. In groupwork, you will need to learn how to discuss, listen, compromise, and share in order to come to collaborative solutions.

23. Attention to Detail: When writing and reading, you need to get even the smallest details correct. if you don’t, you won’t demonstrate a complex and nuanced understanding of topics, and you’ll likely get lower grades. 

24. Information Literacy: In the digital age, there is an overwhelming amount of information available at our fingertips. Information literacy refers to the able to select the most relevant, reliable, valid, and useful information for your needs.

25. Goal Setting: Having goals is one thing, but planning how to achieve them is an entirely different skill. At university, you need to be able to set long-term goals and short-term goals and develop action plans to achieve them. This includes things like creating milestones, time management, and even budgeting. Consider the SMART Goals framework for ideas.

26. Prioritization: Along with goal setting comes the ability to prioritize. In order to achieve your goals, you need to be able to figure out what tasks are the most important and tackle those first. This can be a difficult skill to master, but it is essential for students.

27. Note Taking: You will be taking notes in every class – so you need to get good at it! One solution is to use the cornell method of note taking which is designed specifically for college students.

28. Self-Directed Learning : In university, your learning is usually self-directed, meaning you have to do a lot of learning yourself without your teacher around you. They will set reading tasks and give you the basic information, but it’s your job to branch out and go deep on topics to get the top grades.

29. Work Ethic: A person with good work ethic is someone who works hard and commits to their work. They don’t slack off or cut corners. These sorts of people are often very successful students.

30. Multi-Tasking: Multi-tasking is the ability to do two or more tasks at the same time. At university, you will be constantly multi-tasking because you will be juggling multiple classes along with your work life and personal life every week. You need to be able to juggle your competing needs, meet deadlines, and still have a social life.

31. Punctuality: I remember turning up to class 5 minutes late and getting told I’m too late – I missed the seminar! In other words, chances are, if you’re not punctual, you’ll miss important information and you won’t get much sympathy from your professor!

32. Self-Reflection : There will be times when you let yourself down or don’t get the grades you want. In these situations, you need to be able to pause and reflect on what you did to find ways to constantly improve.

33. Logic: Being logical is important in university because you need to form clear and coherent arguments in your submissions. Furthermore, when you’re reading, you need to be able to see the connections between things and even identify logical fallacies or heuristics in the authors’ arguments.

34. Professionalism: One time when you will have to use professionalism is when you send emails to your professor. Don’t send emails as if they’re text messages. Remember to include salutations and write politely and professionally.

35. Adaptability : You’ll need to adapt at university. For example, you might need to adapt your laerning style for different classes. Some classes will require you to listen and take down verbatim notes, while other teachers will be very hands-on. You’ll need to be able to adapt to both teaching styles.

36. Diligence: Diligence means working hard and paying attention to detail. You can’t just do the bare minimum to get by – you need to put in the extra effort if you want to excel at university.

37. Self-Editing: There will be many times when you don’t have a peer or teacher to edit your work. Instead, you’ll have to rely on your own self-editing skills. Fortunately, self-editing can help increase your grades by 13%!

38. Social Networking: A huge part of attending university is developing social capital. You’ll get opportunities to meet industry leaders and potential employers. Make sure you make the most of this as the social contacts you make at university will help you to get a job at the end of it all.

39. Academic Cultural Capital: This refers to the skill of knowing how to navigate the politics of university. You need to understand how to do things that are exclusively part of academic culture, like referencing properly and academic note-taking.

40. Determination: There are not many other times in your life when you’ll need to dig deep and stay determined. When times get tough, rely on your determination to get that degree at the end, and use that determination to keep on going through thick and thin.

41. Self-Assessment : Self-assessment refers to your ability to analyze how you’re going, check-in with yourself, and evaluate your progress. If you can’t self-assess, then you won’t be able to identify your weaknesses and work on them.

42. Self-Belief: You need to believe in yourself in order to put in the effort. If you don’t believe in yourself, you will give up and never make it through the tough parts. To have self-belief, you might need to focus on developing an internal locus of control.

43. Self-Control : When studying, you need to be able to sit down, focus, and ignore all of the distractions around you. One good technique to help with your self-control is to use a pomodoro timer, designed to help you focus as you study.

44. Growth Mindset : A growth mindset is a belief in your ability to grow, improve, and learn. Without a growth mindset, you’ll find yourself giving up. The opposite of a growth mindset is a fixed mindset .

45. Realism: While you should aim for the best, make sure you still have one foot on the ground. Realism is a skill because it enables you to know what you can reasonably achieve and what’s a bridge too far.

46. Technical Writing Skills: If you’re doing a practical or science degree, you’ll need some technical writing abilities. This includes the ability to write reports, standard operating procedures, and manuals.

47. Analytical Thinking : This refers to the ability to think critically about data and information. To be analytical, you need to be able to understand complex systems and see the relationships between different variables.

48. Mathematical Thinking: This refers to the ability to solve complex numerical problems. If you’re studying a science or business degree, you’ll need to be good at math.

49. Summarizing: Nearly every day you’ll be summarizing things. You need to summarize information when you take notes, explain concepts in class, and write essays. The key to summarizing is to synthesize the most important data and present it clearly and succinctly.

50. Proofreading: Once you’ve finished writing a piece for class, it’s important to proofread your work. This means reading through it again to check for any spelling, grammar, or factual errors. As you do this, work on making the information clearer.

51. Active Listening : In class, you will need to use active listening skills to truly absorb the information provided as well as to engage in conversation. This involves hearing, understanding, and responding to what the other person is saying. Good active listeners don’t just wait for their turn to speak, they also make eye contact, use body language, and ask questions.

52. Humility: Learning to be humble is an important skill for students. This means being able to accept you’re not perfect. You’ll get tough feedback and you need to be open and willing to learn from your professor to improve slowly over time.

53. Deconstructing Texts: To deconstruct a text, you need to be able to read it closely and analyze the different parts. This process can help you understand the main ideas, identify logical inconsistencies, and commit information to memory effectively. 

54. Reading for Meaning: When studying, you often need to be able to read for meaning rather than reading every single word. This is particularly true in reference texts where you can scan sections and set your focus only on sections that are relevant to what you’re looking for.

55. Empirical Thinking: This is the ability to think critically about empirical evidence. Empirical evidence is data that has been collected through observation or experiment. When looking at empirical evidence, you need to be able to understand the data and see what it means.

56. Discourse Analysis : This academic skill involves analyzing the meaning within texts to understand the discourses (in other words: the narratives and ideologies) that the text relies upon to get across its message. This is particularly important in social studies subjects.

57. Focus: Focus is extremely important to a student. You’ll need to focus when studying, in lectures, and in class. Sometimes, academic information is very bland and boring, but sustaining your focus is necessary if you’re hoping to get a good grade.

58. Deductive Thinking : This is the ability to arrive at a conclusion based on evidence and reasoning. In other words, you start with a few facts (or premises) and then use them to logically deduce a conclusion. This is a valuable skill in mathematics and the sciences.

59. Inductive Thinking: This is the ability to come up with a generalization based on specific data or evidence. In other words, you start with data or evidence and then use it to come up with a general idea. It can be seen as the opposite of deductive thinking.

60. Identifying Fallacies: A fallacy is an error in reasoning. There are many different types of fallacies , but they all involve coming to a conclusion that isn’t supported by the evidence. As a student, you need to be able to identify fallacies so that you can avoid them in your own work and call them out when others make them.

61. Hypothesizing: A hypothesis is a proposed explanation for a phenomenon. In other words, it’s an educated guess. When you do research in an academic setting, you often need to come up with hypotheses that you will then test using rigorous research methods.

62. Experimental Design: This is the process of planning an experiment. It involves coming up with a hypothesis, choosing a method of testing, and designing an experiment that will provide evidence to support or refute the hypothesis.

63. Data Analysis : This is the process of looking at data and making sense of it. This can involve anything from simple statistical analysis to more complex methods of qualitative data analysis .

64. Debate Skills: You may be asked by your teacher to argue your point convincingly and respond to the points made by others. This skill is particularly important in law and politics, but is also used in just about any subject to help students learn the various arguments and approaches to a topic.

65. Objectivity (Bias Minimization): Academics try their hardest to avoid bias. This is hard because many of our biases are unconscious biases. To aim for objectivity, we often follow tried and tested research methods and ensure our research is peer-reviewed.

66. Compare and Contrast: This academic skill involves looking at two or more things and identifying the similarities and differences between them. This is a core thought experiment used regularly in academic settings to help students understand the relationships between different texts or events.

See Also: How to Write a Compare and Contrast Essay

67. Critical Reading: This involves reading a text closely and critically in order to understand its meaning and to identify any flaws in its argument. This is an important skill for students because it allows them to engage with the material on a deeper level.

68. Differentiation : Like compare and contrast above, differentiation involves looking at two or more things and identifying the similarities and differences between them. However, differentiation goes one step further and asks students to not only identify the similarities and differences, but to also evaluate them.

69. Referencing : This is the process of acknowledging the sources that you have used in your work. This is important because it ensures that you give credit where it’s due and avoid plagiarism. There are different conventions for referencing (e.g. APA, MLA, and Chicago styles), so you need to make sure you know which one to use.

70. Academic Writing Style: Generally, academic writing involves writing in third person language, referencing whenever you make a claim that needs to be supported, and formulating a clear and coherent argument throughout your paper. There are different types of academic writing, including expository , argumentative, and report writing.

71. Integrity : You will exercise integrity every time you choose not to cheat, dedicate time and effort to learning the information, and be open and honest about how you conducted your research. When you have integrity, you avoid plagiarism, fabricating data, and other forms of academic dishonesty.

72. Intellectual Curiosity: Many academics are driven by a desire to understand the world and how it works. This curiosity leads them to ask questions, read voraciously, and conduct research. Being intellectually curious means that you are constantly learning and growing as a person.

73. Cooperation : In many academic disciplines, students are expected to work together in order to complete assignments and projects. This cooperative spirit is also important in the workplace, where team projects are the norm.

74. Initiative : At university, you don’t have anyone leaning over your shoulder and telling you how to do things. You are expected to be proactive and take initiative in your learning. This means that you need to be organized, set your own deadlines, and keep on top of your workload.

74. Creativity : Many people think that creativity is only important for arts and humanities students. However, creativity is also important in disciplines such as science, where it can be used to come up with new hypotheses and solve problems in innovative ways.

75. Specialization: At university, you’re expected to start specializing in the subjects that will be relevant to your career goals. For example, if you want to be a doctor, you will need to take courses in biology, chemistry, and physics.

76. Conscientiousness : This means reliable, hardworking, and organized. People who are conscientious tend to do well in academic settings because they are able to keep on top of their work and meet deadlines.

77. Interpersonal Skills : These are the skills that you use to interact with other people. They include communication, empathy, and teamwork. Interpersonal skills are important in academic settings because they help you to work effectively in group presentations and tasks.

78. Ethical Thinking: This is the ability to think about the moral implications of your actions. It is important in academic settings because it helps you to make sure that your research is conducted in an ethical manner. Hence, we have the concept in academia of ‘research ethics’.

79. Divergent Thinking : Divergent thinking is the ability to come up with new ideas and solutions. It is useful in academic settings because it allows you to be creative in your thinking and come up with innovative solutions that can help you get top grades.

80. Convergent Thinking : Convergent thinking is the ability to focus on one particular solution. It too can be useful in academic settings because it allows you to focus your thoughts and come up with a clear and concise argument (this is especially important when writing a thesis!).

81. Perseverance: This is the ability to keep going even when things are tough. You’re going to need this as a student! It will help you to continue with your studies even when things get difficult.

82. Persuasiveness: This is the ability to convince other people of your point of view. It can come in handy when you’re trying to get a good grade on an essay or presentation.

83. Project Management: This is the ability to plan, organize, and execute a project such as a thesis or group project. It is useful in academic settings because it allows you to efficiently manage your time and resources. Furthermore, it will be very useful as a workplace skill after you graduate.

84. Reliability: At university, you need to be a reliable partner in your group tasks. Furthermore, you’ll need to reliably hand in your essays and assignments on time or you won’t be able to pass your courses.

85. Insightfulness : This is the ability to understand and see things in a deep and meaningful way. In academic settings, this can help you to critically analyze arguments and come up with your own insightful interpretations of texts. Consider it a great compliment if your teacher gives you feedback: “very insightful!”.

86. Ambition: Ideally, you would be ambitious in your studies. For example, you should aim to be the best you can and get A+ Grades in your classes. If you lack ambition, then you’re more likely to give up when things get tough.

87. Proactiveness: You need to be proactive in order to survive at university. No one will tell you to start studying – you have to dig deep and find the strength from within to get started on your work in order to ensure you get everything completed in time.

88. Dedication: This is similar to ambition and perseverance. You need to be dedicated to your studies in order to be successful. This means putting in the extra time even when your life is already busy and full.

89. Efficiency : Efficiency is all about getting things done in the most effective way possible. This means finding ways to save time to spend on your studies while also having time for family, friends, and work.

90. Patience : Learning takes time. You often get frustrated that you haven’t mastered the information immediately. By studying regularly and chipping away at your work, you can succeed. Without patience, you may give up too soon.

91. Strategic Thinking : Strategic thinking is the ability to see the big picture and plan accordingly. This is useful in academic settings because you’ll often be asked to complete long-term and complex projects that require a strategic plan in order to succeed.

92. Resourcefulness: Resourcefulness is the ability to find and use the best resources available to you. This can be useful in academic settings because you are not given all of the information you need by your teacher. You will be expected to use the library and your home computer to find more information to complete your studies.

93. Presentation Skills: Presentation skills are important academic strengths because you will often have to present your work to the class. This means being able to effectively communicate your ideas in a way that is clear and concise.

94. Dependability : When doing group work, it is important to be a dependable partner. This means completing your tasks on time and being willing to help out other members of your group when needed. You’ll also need to be dependable for your teacher by submitting your work on time.

95. Intellectual Curiosity: Intellectual curiosity refers to the desire to learn and explore new ideas. It is an expectation at university that you are curious about the topics and study them deeply both in class and while completing your assignments.

96. Tenacity: Tenacity is the ability to keep going even when things are tough. When you’re studying, there will be times when you feel like giving up. If you have tenacity, you’ll be able to push through these tough times and come out successful on the other side.

97. Responsiveness: Academic settings are professional. If you’re contacted by your teacher, there’s an expectation that you respond in a reasonable timeframe. Similarly, when working in groups, you will need to be responsive to your team members.

98. Triangulation: This refers to the ability to use multiple sources of information to support your ideas. When writing essays, you’ll need to use evidence from your readings as well as multiple other sources in order to support your thesis.

99. Media Literacy : Media literacy is the ability to critically consume and analyze media. In an era where there is low media literacy in the general population, this is even more important than ever. You will need to know when media is biased, invalid, or unreliable.

100. Conflict Resolution : When working in groups, there will be times when conflict arises. We assign students these groupwork tasks in order to help them learn to cooperate, resolve conflict, and work effectively together. After all, this is also a skill you will need in the workforce.

101. Library Skills: The library is a crucial resource for university students. In order to succeed, you will need to know how to use the library effectively. This means being able to find the resources you need, using the library catalogue, and citing your sources correctly.

102. Online Etiquette: I often get frustrated with my students who email me with colloquial language. Instead, aim to be professional online as if you were talking to a boss or client.

103. Open-Mindedness: At university, you will be exposed to new and different ideas. It’s important to keep an open mind in order to learn and grow from these experiences. Many students leave university with completely different worldviews than when they started because they were open-minded to new information.

104. Commitment: Undertaking a university degree is a huge commitment. It takes a lot of time, energy, and effort. You need to be sure that you are committed to the process in order to succeed. When you graduate, that certificate shows a future employer that you can commit to something and see it through.

105. Independent Thought: One of the main reasons why university is so valuable is because it teaches you to think independently. This means forming your own opinions, evaluating evidence, and thinking critically about the world around you. It’s a skill that will be useful in every aspect of your life.

106. Personal Responsibility: At university, you are in charge of your own learning. This means that you need to take responsibility for your own success. If you don’t hand in an assignment, it’s not the professor’s fault – it’s yours. If you don’t study for an exam, that’s on you.

These are just a few examples of the types of academic skills that students need in order to be successful. Of course, the specific skills that are most important will vary depending on the individual and the particular field of study. However, all of these skills are valuable for success in an academic setting.

One of the best ways to develop and improve academic skills is to work closely with your teacher. You can also approach your university library which may offer regular academic skills seminars. By participating in these types of seminars, students have the opportunity to practice and hone their skills.

• Chris Drew (PhD) https://helpfulprofessor.com/author/chris-drew-phd-2/ 25 Number Games for Kids (Free and Easy)
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• Chris Drew (PhD) https://helpfulprofessor.com/author/chris-drew-phd-2/ 50 Incentives to Give to Students

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Academic Skills: Definition, Examples, How To Improve Them

Achieving academic success requires more than just hard work – it involves strategically developing and applying a range of skills suited to your unique talents and abilities. These talents, known as strengths, can be identified through a comprehensive assessment like the HIGH5 test . The skills that allow students to capitalize on their strengths and excel academically are referred to as academic skills.

By taking the HIGH5 test and understanding your greatest strengths, you can prioritize honing the most relevant academic skills for your natural way of thinking and working. In this article, we will cover how you can seek out academic skills, attain them, and use these skills to your advantage in life.

What Are Academic Skills? Definition & Meaning

Academic skills are the traits and academic strategies that help you become a better student. They prepare you for your career, help you stay focused and motivated, get you exposed to new ways of thinking, and so much more. These skills are more than just innate, though.

Environment, such as parental motivation and asking kids difficult questions to broaden their horizons, plays a role. Learning strategies, studying strategies, and attention all help you absorb as much as possible at school. These tasks will translate into highly developed academic abilities.

Regardless of the particular skills, academic or study skills help you acquire good grades and may even help you enjoy school more. At times, academic and study abilities are categorized together, as they are intertwined. They are typically taught to high schoolers and college students but can be learned at any time.

If a skill helps you study efficiently, attain a desirable grade, stay focused, and retain information, it is a study skill. Such an essential skill is not only applicable to one field of study, too. An immense benefit of these abilities is their versatility and range of applicability.

Importance of Academic Skills for Students & Their Benefits

There are numerous benefits to using academic skills effectively. The key is to identify and capitalize on your unique strengths through a validated assessment like the HIGH5 test. For example, those with strong writing abilities can become more persuasive by leaning into their talent for verbal expression. Similarly, students gifted with curiosity and analytical thinking can leverage their natural research strengths to learn about the world and process information deeply. Taking the HIGH5 test provides personalized insights into your greatest skills, empowering you to strategically develop and apply them across academic pursuits.

In a more general sense, academic/study skills help students succeed in school and even in extracurricular activities. They can focus for longer, communicate better, attain higher test grades, remember more of their lectures, and so much more.

10 Benefits of Academic Skills

The following list will provide you with detailed benefits of boosting academic abilities:

• Increased ability to focus and get work done (increased time management skills)
• More enthusiasm and passion at school, especially when learning about a new topic
• Higher test grades from more efficient studying
• Being able to effectively communicate your problems with teachers so that they can assist you
• Greater ability to recall information and apply it to the real world
• An increased understanding of how you learn and the best ways to maximize study time
• Increased goal-planning skills and a more goal-oriented mindset
• A boost in your self-confidence and increased desirability to venture outside of your comfort zone
• Greater desirability to improve and more interest in new academic skill development
• More teamwork and stronger communication within those teams

12 Examples of Academic Skills

While some believe “academic” strategies and skills only apply to the scholarly world, this is not entirely accurate. Academic skills can also benefit individuals in the workplace.

In fact, one of the great benefits of learning such skills early on is the ability to transfer them to your lifelong career.

Many of the benefits one gains in school can also be transferred to their work. Below is a list of a few academic skills and the benefits they bring to your career.

Pro Tip From HIGH5 Maintaining focus and avoiding procrastination can be challenging for some, while others seem to naturally excel at time management. If this skill is one of your strengths identified by the HIGH5 test , build on it by experimenting with different productivity techniques like the Pomodoro method or personal kanban boards. However, if time management is not an innate strength, consider working with a coach or finding an accountability partner to systematically develop habits that compensate in this area.

1. Time management

When you are a student, managing your time translates toward maximizing your study time. However, time management in the workplace does not necessarily mean “working as much as possible.” It also involves prioritizing tasks, planning, setting goals, and much more.

As an employee, you will often have to meet deadlines. Managing time is crucial for that. To consistently meet your goals, you must also work with deadlines or quotas. The idea of working smarter , and not always harder, is included in effective time management.

You should learn about your distractions and which environments maximize your productivity. Schedules, reminders, timers, and planners can all help you build your time management abilities.

2. Research skills

When you think back to your secondary school years, specifically literacy class, what comes to mind? Likely, you will remember the long and arduous essays you had to write. Or, complex school projects may come to mind. Regardless, both of these tasks involve a high level of research if you wish to be successful.

Proper research involves finding credible sources, reading data, interpreting it, knowing the questions you need to answer, and understanding where to search for those answers. To effectively design a product, you may need to research development practices and regulations. You need to evaluate your place in the market, which involves research. Careers in journalism and medicine both benefit from this skill the most, though.

3. Reading comprehension

Undoubtedly, every worker will have to read instructions, script, or some other form of writing during the workday. The ability to truly understand this writing is known as reading comprehension.

Students require this ability to understand tasks, homework questions, tests, and project requirements, and perform research for tests as well as projects. You will continue using this skill after you graduate. Employees also need to clearly understand the directions given to them.

Written communication is also common, so this skill will be applied there as well. When gathering information online, you will need to use reading comprehension. If you want to boost your comprehension levels, consider reading more books, increasing your vocabulary, or searching for specific industry terms.

4. Computer skills

You may believe that computer skills are only necessary for coders and engineers, but this is not the case. In today’s digitalized world, knowing how to operate electronic devices is key to success. It can boost your productivity and help you research better. If you wish to create a schedule, send an email, or create a report or graph, you will need to utilize software and hardware.

Many industries rely on specific software to boost efficiency as well. For instance, Google Docs is used as opposed to paper document sharing. Or, marketing platforms such as Facebook Ads are utilized. Knowing some basic computer skills can truly benefit you in any career.

5. Self-discipline

There are ways to use extrinsic, or outside, motivation to your advantage. However, relying solely on others to motivate you is risky. You must also have self-motivation and intrinsic motivation . Similarly to time management, motivation can help you prioritize tasks and set clear goals.

You are also more inclined to achieve those goals if you are motivated. Many individuals have a natural tendency to procrastinate. Self-discipline will help you overcome this bad habit. Instead, you will focus on what truly matters and achieve goals, even without direct supervision. You can utilize management skills to boost motivation by creating schedules and due dates for yourself.

6. Critical thinking

Critical thinking is a universally needed trait. It helps you analyze information and creatively solve problems. With critical thinking, even complex problems and tasks are easier to understand. In virtually any workplace setting, you will encounter setbacks and hardships. During these moments, critical thinking is needed to overcome problems.

You can address inefficiency and mistakes by using critical thinking skills. Critical thought also breeds innovation and helps you maintain a competitive advantage over other firms and candidates. Mindfulness, industry-related knowledge, and speaking to mentors can boost your ability to think critically.

7. Group work

Even the most independent jobs require some level of group work and communication. As a student, you will need to participate in group projects. You may also need to discuss topics or assignments in group settings. If you know how to work with a group, many other skills will follow.

Teamwork leads to increased conflict resolution skills, better communication, increased collaboration skills, and being a better leader. Throughout your career, you may need to work with others in your department or even multiple departments at once. To improve your collaboration skills, you can try volunteering or participating in non-work-related group activities, such as team sports.

8. Presentation and public speaking skills

Students, employees, and employers alike will all need to give presentations. Public speaking abilities allow you to appear confident, calm your nerves, and effectively communicate a message.

They make you more persuasive and more likely to achieve your goals. Using proper body language, tone, communication style, word choice, and so on all contribute to being a charismatic public speaker.

By giving your audience appropriate visual aids and speaking assertively, you increase your authority and grab the audience’s attention. Take a public speaking class or ask your friends for public speaking feedback.

Writing skills are necessary for a diverse list of fields. You will become a better communicator, retain more information, take clear notes, instruct others clearly, and write quality reports if you increase your ability to write well.

While you may not need to write paper notes often, writing is still a vital skill. You will likely need to write emails, create memos, and report progress, all of which require strong writing abilities. To be informative and persuasive, you must understand how to be a good writer. It may even improve your leadership and collaboration skills. There are many guides you can access to improve your writing. Alternatively, you can also take a writing workshop.

10. Goal planning

There are many benefits that come from setting goals. You become more motivated, feel more engaged, stay productive,  and generally enjoy your job more with goals.

However, you cannot set the best goals without understanding goal planning. Having a specific goal-setting strategy will further increase your productivity and focus.

Once you understand how goals function, you can track your progress. You will understand which strategies are effective and the best ways to maximize your success.

There are many resources that can assist you in creating goals. Keep the acronym SMART in mind when setting a goal: specific, measurable, attainable, relevant, and time-bound.

11. Taking constructive criticism

Taking criticism personally is one way to self-sabotage your career. In school, you consistently get feedback from teachers and other peers.

This may be in the form of comments, or more commonly, through tests and direct communication with parents.

At work, you will likely have performance reviews or progress meetings. There, your supervisors will explain what you are and are not doing well.

If you see feedback as an opportunity to grow, then your ability to increase all of your skills is high. Your overall potential increases.

On the other hand, ignoring criticism robs you of the opportunity to develop your skills and improve.

Try to ask for feedback whenever possible, be an active listener, and avoid impulsive or emotional reactions to processing feedback.

12. Multitasking

Multitasking is a controversial skill. Some say it may decrease your productivity, while others believe the exact opposite.

However, there are ways to effectively leverage multitasking to your benefit. Multitasking is the ability to simultaneously perform multiple tasks.

While you are a student, this usually looks like working on two assignments at once. You may be listening to a lecture while also taking notes, for example.

As an employee, you will need to prioritize and organize tasks to maximize your productivity. Sometimes, this may mean working on two tasks at once.

On the web, you can find a plethora of information on multitasking techniques and how to develop them.

Be careful with using multitasking, though. If the quantity of output starts to decrease quality, it may be time to dud on each task individually.

How to Develop Academic Skills?

Developing academic skills begins with dedication and a customized approach based on your unique strengths profile. Before creating schedules and plans, take the HIGH5 strengths assessment to gain insights into your greatest talents. Then, structure your skill development strategies around leaning into those strengths.

For example, if discipline and focus are strengths, build habits like timeboxing your most crucial tasks each day. However, if strengths like creativity and cognitive risk-taking are more natural, experiment with unstructured learning through immersive projects. Tailoring your approach allows you to develop skills while working from a motivating strengths-based mindset.

Additionally, being someone with strong academic abilities requires a passion for knowledge-seeking and learning. You should be willing to constantly seek out information on how to improve yourself and learn more about your field. One way to do this is to ask for feedback from teachers, colleagues, or bosses. If they have any productivity reports, ask them to see the data.

They may also give you general advice on what to work on. Do not take this personally. Rather, see it as an opportunity to grow and learn new skills. Finally, you should also acquire a few technical skills in addition to communication abilities. Communication is necessary for virtually any field. You will be more productive with this ability. Make yourself available as a team player. If someone needs help, step in and offer assistance.

When working in a team, ensure you play a crucial role and help propel your group to success. When it comes to technical skills, experience is the best way to learn. Writing, for instance, is a technical skill. You can become a better writer by reading other texts, expanding your vocabulary, and attending workshops.

Computer skills are also learned through experience. Experiment with new software when generating schedules or presentations. Consider taking a computer course in school, if possible.

Pro Tip From HIGH5 When improving skills that don’t rely on your strongest talents, use your HIGH5 strengths profile to determine supportive habits. For instance, if public speaking isn’t a strength but relationship-building is, join groups where you can practice presenting among trusted peers first. Or if attention to detail isn’t innate but you have high achievement motivation, use checklists and peer reviews to sharpen your precision. The strengths-based approach provides a roadmap for strategically developing new skills from your motivational sweet spot.

How to Improve Academic Skills?

Before you can improve your skills, you must track them. Understand your baseline skill levels. To do this, you can keep track of them by yourself. For productivity, measure how many projects you finish weekly or how many homework assignments you finish in a quarter.

In terms of communication, you can track the percentage of emails you respond to or how many group projects you volunteer for. Doing so will give you a clear understanding of your current skills. Then, you should seek feedback. Make yourself available to others whenever possible if your goal is a communicator.

Eliminating distractions and setting clear goals should help you improve any academic ability, whether it is a dedication to studying or improving your presentation skills . When you ask for feedback, ensure you get as much information as possible. If you ask a teacher or mentor, follow up by requesting details on how they themselves improved the skill you are focusing on. Through dedication, clear goal setting, and mentor support, you can improve any skill.

Academic Skills for Resumes & How To Add Them

Since academic skills often translate to skills in the workplace, you should include them on your resume. These skills can clearly show employees you have a track record of being a communicator, leader, critical thinker, and so on. By highlighting these skills, you can highlight the best qualities about you as an employee. Thus, the employer may be more attracted to hiring you.

Some skills, however, are more crucial than others. To determine which skills are most important to insert, consider the job and industry you are interested in. Look through the job description and even the employer description. Do they mention any skills directly? See if they allude to any skills as well, such as stating the company values hard work in the employer description.

Then, take a look at the task list that is written in the job description. Think about which academic skills could help you perform those tasks efficiently.

Related: 33 Teacher Interview Questions & How To Prepare for an Interview

If a task is similar to tasks you performed at school, recall which skills you used to perform the task well. For example, if the job lists “group work/projects” as one of your weekly tasks, consider how you collaborated and worked in teams at school. Collaboration, communication, and leadership likely helped you perform the task well at school. Then, these tasks are the best tasks to list on your resume.

Related: 23 Preschool Teacher Interview Questions with Answers

Frequently Asked Questions About Academic Skills

What are the 5 academic skills.

A few skills are universally regarded as important. They include time management, critical thinking, cooperation, technical skills, and motivation. All of these skills will benefit you during school, college, and beyond. Even after you are no longer involved in school, these skills continue to give you an advantage over other individuals.

What are academic skills for university?

In university, you should have strong writing, reading, mathematical, and computer skills. You should be able to clearly process information and retain knowledge. Additionally, time management remains a crucial skill. Prioritizing your tasks and working hard is key to being productive. Finally, being a team player and leader will help you stand out as a particularly dedicated student and will benefit your academic career.

Related: 22 Teaching Assistant Job Interview Questions & Sample Answers

What are the most important academic skills?

If you need to focus on a skill, the following skills are good choices regardless of which industry you plan to enter: time management, leadership, dedication, motivation, communication, critical thinking, and researching. All of them will help you stay productive, increase your value to a team, and make your work more enjoyable.

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• Higher Ed Trends

The Ultimate Guide to Academic Leadership in Higher Ed

Learn about the foundations, principles and critical role academic leadership plays in shaping the future of a higher education institution

Top Hat Staff

Academic leadership refers to the ability of individuals within academic institutions to inspire and guide students, faculty members, and staff toward a common vision of academic excellence. It involves setting a strategic direction, making decisions that promote the growth and success of the institution, and fostering an environment that encourages innovation, creativity, and collaboration.

Academic leadership in higher education is critical because it plays a vital role in shaping the future of an institution. Effective academic leaders create a positive culture that supports the mission and goals of the institution, fosters a sense of community , and promotes the development of a diverse and inclusive academic environment. “The fundamental pillars of school leadership are relationships,” Jo Ann Rooney, former president of Loyola University Chicago, has said. “Nothing substitutes for building and nurturing them.” 

Academic leadership is also critical because it directly impacts the quality of education that students receive. Academic leaders are responsible for developing and implementing policies and practices that ensure the academic programs offered are of the highest quality and meet the needs of students. As an example of this, Mary Sue Coleman served as the president of the University of Michigan from 2002 to 2014. During her tenure, she emphasized the importance of public engagement and community outreach, and she established several initiatives to support student success, including the Michigan Merit Scholarship program and the Wolverine Pathways program for underserved K-12 students. A key priority for academic leaders is recruiting and retaining faculty members who are experts in their fields and who are committed to excellence in teaching, research, and service.

Who are the leaders at an academic institution?

The leaders at an academic institution typically include the president or chancellor, provost or vice-president for academic affairs, deans of various schools or colleges, and department chairs or program directors. These individuals work together to provide strategic direction, make decisions that support the academic mission and goals of the institution, and ensure the success of the students, faculty, and staff. Educational software like Top Hat supports institution-wide success through its single, flexible platform that empowers instructors and leaders to generate engagement in the way that best fits the needs of their students. Additionally, academic institutions may have other leaders, such as directors of centers or institutes, who also contribute to the success of the institution.

What is the role of an academic leader?

The role of an academic leader is multifaceted, encompassing a wide range of responsibilities and tasks. At its core, the role of an academic leader is to provide strategic direction, promote academic excellence, and foster a positive and inclusive academic culture. Academic leaders are responsible for developing and implementing policies and practices that support the academic mission and goals of the institution. They are also responsible for ensuring that the institution maintains a high standard of academic quality and rigor . 

In addition to setting the strategic direction of the institution, academic leaders are responsible for managing the institution’s resources, including its budget and human capital. They must allocate resources effectively to support the institution’s goals and ensure that all members of the community have access to the resources they need to succeed. Academic leaders must also foster a culture of collaboration and teamwork, encouraging open communication and supporting the professional development of their team members. Ultimately, the role of an academic leader is to promote the success of the institution, its faculty, staff, and students, and to ensure that it remains relevant and innovative in an ever-changing academic landscape.   Shirley Ann Jackson, president of Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute since 1999, serves as an example of a strategic institutional leader. Under her leadership, RPI has become a leader in technology and innovation, and the institute has established partnerships with businesses, governments, and non-profits to create new opportunities for students and faculty.

6 key characteristics of effective academic leaders

Now that we’ve established what academic leadership is and why it’s critical, let’s dive into key educational leadership qualities:

• Visionary Thinking: Effective academic leaders have a clear vision of what they want to achieve and can articulate that vision to others. They are forward-thinking and are able to anticipate future trends and challenges.
• Strategic Planning: Academic leaders must be able to develop and implement a strategic plan that aligns with the institution’s mission and goals. They must be able to allocate resources, set priorities, and make decisions that support the achievement of the plan.
• Strong Communication Skills: Academic leaders must be able to communicate effectively with a wide range of stakeholders, including faculty members, students, staff, and external partners. They must be able to listen actively, express their ideas clearly, and provide feedback that is constructive and actionable.
• Collaboration: Academic leaders must be able to work effectively with others and foster a culture of collaboration and teamwork. They must be able to build strong relationships with stakeholders and engage them in the decision-making process.
• Accountability: Effective academic leaders hold themselves and others accountable for meeting the institution’s goals and objectives. They set high standards and expectations and ensure that they are met.
• Inclusivity and Diversity: Academic leaders must create an inclusive and diverse academic environment that values and respects all members of the community. They must ensure that policies and practices promote equity and inclusion and that all members of the community have access to the resources they need to succeed.

By embodying these characteristics, academic leaders can create a positive culture that supports the success of the institution and its stakeholders.

3 effective leadership styles in academia

There are several leadership styles that academic leaders may adopt, but here are three common ones:

• Transformational Leadership: This style of leadership is focused on inspiring and motivating individuals to achieve their full potential. Transformational leaders are typically visionary, and they use their charisma, enthusiasm, and communication skills to inspire their team members to work toward a shared vision. They empower their team members by providing them with the tools, resources, and support they need to succeed. Michael Crow, for example, has been the president of Arizona State University since 2002, and during his tenure, he has transformed the institution into one of the most innovative and dynamic universities in the world. Crow has emphasized the importance of interdisciplinary research and collaboration and has established partnerships with businesses, governments, and non-profits to create new opportunities for students and faculty.
• Servant Leadership: Servant leadership is focused on putting the needs of others first. Servant leaders prioritize the well-being and development of their team members and work to create a positive, supportive, and inclusive work environment. They are typically empathetic, compassionate, and committed to helping others succeed.
• Autocratic Leadership: In an autocratic leadership style, the leader makes decisions without seeking input from others. This style of leadership is most effective in crisis situations when immediate action is needed. However, it can also lead to an unhealthy power dynamic and a lack of trust and engagement among team members. It is generally not recommended as a long-term leadership style for academic institutions.

What are 5 academic leadership goals?

• Promote Academic Excellence: One of the primary goals of educational leadership is to promote academic excellence. This can be achieved by setting high academic standards, developing effective teaching and learning strategies , and implementing rigorous assessment and evaluation processes .
• Enhance Student Success: Educational leaders should work towards enhancing student success by creating a positive and supportive learning environment. This can include providing academic and personal support services, promoting student engagement and involvement in extracurricular activities, and fostering a sense of community among students . Platforms like Top Hat can help institutional leaders in this goal by allowing students to connect with content, instructors, and classmates. It lets instructors naturally link what students learn in class with engaging assessments and dynamic study materials, which increases student confidence and satisfaction with the course.
• Develop and Implement Strategic Plans: Educational leaders must develop and implement strategic plans that align with the institution’s mission and goals. This involves setting priorities, allocating resources, and monitoring progress towards achieving the institution’s objectives. A leader who embodies this goal is Ruth Simmons, who became the first African American president of an Ivy League institution when she was appointed as the president of Brown University. During her tenure, Simmons increased the university’s financial aid budget, expanded the diversity of the student body, and oversaw the construction of new academic buildings.
• Build and Maintain Positive Relationships: Building and maintaining positive relationships with stakeholders is a critical goal for educational leaders. This includes developing and maintaining strong partnerships with the local community, alumni, donors, and other key stakeholders.
• Foster Inclusive and Diverse Learning Environments: Educational leaders should strive to create inclusive and diverse learning environments that promote equity and respect for all students, faculty, and staff. This includes implementing diversity and inclusion initiatives, promoting cultural competence, and creating opportunities for dialogue and understanding.  

Ultimately, there are three foundations of leadership in an academic organization: academic excellence, student success, and community engagement. 

The key component of academic leadership is the ability to inspire and motivate others. Effective academic leaders must be able to communicate their vision for the institution and inspire others to share in that vision. They must also be able to motivate and empower others to take ownership of their work and to contribute to the success of the institution.

Recommended Readings

How to Equip Your Students With Essential Soft and Hard Skills Using Ed Tech

The Ultimate Guide to Universal Design for Learning

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Study skills for students

Support for students

Whether you are studying for pleasure, to further your career, to increase your knowledge of a subject, to acquire new skills, or to gain a qualification, we hope that you will take advantage of the study skills support we offer at the Department for Continuing Education. Reviewing and developing your study skills will not only boost your confidence and help you succeed, but will also enable you to work more effectively in the time available to you for study.

Developing and improving study skills is a gradual and long-term process. It is also an individual process. If you are new to higher education or have not studied for some time, you may feel worried about tackling your first assignment; taking an exam; or juggling study, family, and work commitments. If you are part- way through a course, or are progressing to a new course, you may feel that it would be useful to brush up your note-taking or writing skills, to acquire some tips on spelling or grammar, or to acquire and practise presentation skills. Whatever your study skills needs, we hope that you will find the support and guidance we provide helpful and that you will enjoy the opportunity to get to know and work with students with similar goals and concerns.

Study Skills Programme

The Study Skills Programme provides guidance across the range of study skills needed at undergraduate level including:

• Managing your time and developing learning strategies
• Reading academic texts critically and effectively
• Taking notes in lectures and from hard or electronic copy
• Planning and writing essays and reports
• Constructing and presenting bibliographies and references
• Developing an academic writing style
• Improving spelling and grammar
• Preparing and delivering presentations
• Revising and sitting examinations

Guidance on using and searching Oxford University’s online library catalogue OLIS and electronic research resources OxLIP using the search and discovery tool SOLO is provided by Rewley House Library .

Workshops and courses

The programme is delivered through:

• A range of half or full day study skills workshops. See our course listings for available education and study skills workshops and courses. 
• Academic Literacy , a ten-week online introductory study skills course. 

Both the study skills workshops and the online introductory academic literacy course are fully supported with handouts and practice exercises. Students are encouraged to discuss study skills problems and solutions and to practise new skills with fellow participants. There is no single formula for successful study. What works for other students may not necessarily work for you. It is important to build upon your own existing skills and abilities but you also need to experiment with tried and tested strategies and techniques in order to find your own preferred and successful methods of study.

Postgraduate students are welcome to attend the workshops or undertake the introductory academic literacy course if they want to refresh their general study skills, but guidance on general and subject-specific postgraduate study skills is provided on individual postgraduate courses.

Further ways to obtain study skills guidance

If you are unable to attend the workshops or register for the online programme, or if you prefer to read about study techniques or merely want to find out about a particular aspect of study, you might like to consult one of our study skills guides, borrow a book from the library or access study skills material online.

Continuing Education study skills guides

The Department has developed a range of study skills guides for students offering advice on tried and tested ways to study effectively.

A copy of our Weekly Classes student handbook, which includes a mini-guide to preparing and writing a range of assignments for our open access courses, can be downloaded as a PDF document by following the link below (please see pages 5-6 ):

• Guide to Producing Coursework  (PDF)

We use the following bespoke guides to support our workshops:

• Introduction to Study Skills
• Building Assignment Writing Skills
• Developing Further Assignment Writing Skills
• Revision and Examination Skills

These are available to current students, either on request from your tutor or from the Rewley House Library reception desk.

There are a large number of books you can consult to find out more about study skills at undergraduate and postgraduate level. Some cover a range of study skills; others focus on specific skills or on individual subject disciplines. The Rewley House Library holds multiple copies of a large selection of study skills publications. You will also find study skills books in your local public library. You may download our list of   recommended study skills texts .

Teaching and learning in Continuing Education

All of our courses are designed to provide a high quality and enjoyable learning experience for part-time adult students. The range of teaching methods and activities varies from course to course, and, depending on the subject taught, may include site visits to archaeological digs, museums, art galleries and heritage buildings in addition to classroom-based teaching.

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Academic Skills and Beyond: A Resource Based Approach to Support Student Success in Higher Education

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Teamwork skills in higher education: is university training contributing to their mastery?

Elena de prada.

1 Department of English, French and German, Faculty of Business and Tourism, University of Vigo, Campus Universitario, 32004 Ourense, Spain

Mercedes Mareque

2 ECOBAS (Economics and Business Administration for Society), Department of Financial Economics and Accountancy, Faculty of Business and Tourism, University of Vigo, Campus Universitario, 32004 Ourense, Spain

Margarita Pino-Juste

3 Department of Didactics, School Organization and Research Methods, Faculty of Education Sciences and Sports, University of Vigo, Campus A Xunqueira, 36005 Pontevedra, Spain

Teamwork skills are considered essential for personal, academic and professional achievement, so universities are increasingly integrating them into their syllabuses. However, little is known about how some specific features of students and their educational development can affect their acquisition. Accordingly, this study aims to fill this gap and describe higher education students’ mastery of teamwork skills and its relation to certain socio-academic variables (gender, academic year and grade point average—GPA). With the aim of determining the level of teamwork skills among university students, an observational, transversal descriptive study was designed with an intentional sample of Spanish university students. The sample is made up of 615 social science degree students. The results suggest significant gender differences, highlighting that female students outdid their male counterparts in most teamwork skills, except leadership. Likewise, students’ skills improved as they progressed in their studies, particularly those skills related to adaptability and decision-making. Finally, a positive relationship was observed between teamwork skills and GPA, except for interpersonal development. A regression analysis confirmed the influence of both academic year and GPA for women whilst no effect was detected in the case of men. Based on these results, it is suggested to make changes in university education programmes to compensate for the influence of socio-academic factors and benefit from the most positive features of each gender regarding teamwork to achieve an equal and fair higher education.

Introduction

Today most higher education institutions highlight the necessity of including both hard and soft skills in their syllabus to meet the required personal, academic and professional demands for a successful career. Hard skills are considered to be the technical knowledge and experiences needed to carry out a job, whilst soft skills are interpersonal qualities, also understood as an individual’s set of social skills and personal attributes. Therefore, soft skills refer to a broad group of skills, behaviours, and personal qualities that enable individuals to function efficiently in their environment, have effective relationships, carry out their work professionally, and achieve the goals they are set (Lippman et al., 2014 ). Soft skills are considered excellent complements to traditional hard skills at university due to their significant role in the current context. However, although soft skills are considered important as hard skills, there is a lack of consensus regarding their characterisation and implementation (Yan et al., 2019 ).

Universities are aware that having an adequate level of education and training not only implies a certain mastery of the contents of a given syllabus; students also need to fully develop the necessary skills to access the job market (García, 2016 ). According to Robles ( 2012 ), in fact, employers consider social skills to be a significantly important attribute for job seekers, demanding that their new employees’ soft skills are as well consolidated as their hard skills, given that current job positions require additional qualities that were previously not demanded (Pitan, 2017 ). Thus, both employers and academic institutions are slowly becoming aware of the need to equip individuals with the competencies, skills and knowledge that will not only facilitate their incorporation into the job market after their studies but also support their professional development throughout their career so that they can successfully adapt to changes in the job market.

Within this context, teamwork skills have been gaining close attention, as they are considered essential competencies in an increasingly more globalised, dynamic and complex world. New employees are asked if they have teamwork skills, can resolve specific work issues or have the required skills to handle the new challenges posed by today’s society (Baneres & Conesa, 2017 ). Universities are not oblivious to society’s needs, specifically to the demand of companies for students and future workers to be trained in soft skills. Over the past few years, universities have manifested their concern with students’ mastery of soft skills, specifically those related to learning to work in teams, given their correlation with employability. Recruiters are looking for employees with soft skills, as they are aware of the link between the former and the successful maintenance and execution of a job (Blaszczynski & Green, 2012 ). Therefore, in the present day, job adverts frequently list soft skills—including teamwork—as a requirement (Clares et al., 2019 ).

Little research focuses on students’ acquisition level of the different teamwork skills, which will aid ongoing learning throughout their careers. The same happens with research focused on establishing the relationship between teamwork skills and students’ specific socio-academic features. In this sense, studies such as the ones carried out by Al-Alawneh and Ashour ( 2011 ), Al-Alawneh et al. ( 2011 ), Beigi and Shirmohammadi ( 2012 ), Chamorro-Premuzic et al. ( 2010 ), Chapman and Van Auken ( 2001 ), Ilias et al. ( 2012 ), Lozano-Rodríguez et al. ( 2020 ), Park et al. ( 2015 ) and Rodríguez-Gómez et al. ( 2018 ) have tried to establish the possible relationships between teamwork skills and gender, academic experience or academic performance.

The objective of the present study is to describe higher education students’ mastery level of teamwork skills and its relation to certain socio-academic variables, to introduce changes in university training programmes that can respond to the demands of companies and strengthen their employability. In order to carry out this objective, an observational, transversal descriptive study was devised and tested with an intentional sample of Spanish university students, using the Teamwork Skills Questionnaire (TSQ) (O’Neill et al., 1999 ), which measures an individual’s skill level to work efficiently in a team. This research contributes to the existing literature offering new empirical evidence about teamwork skills levels in Spanish university students on the one hand and adding new insights about the influence of gender and academic factors on teamwork skills on the other.

Soft skills for teamwork

Soft skills are considered essential elements of employees’ development. The acquisition of these skills enables attitudinal and behavioural change in workers, as well as increased productivity and well-being (Sitthisomjin et al., 2014 ). Soft skills facilitate effective teamwork, which is an integral part of the execution of many professions (Vaughan et al., 2019 ).

Therefore, students in both compulsory and further education need to be trained in these skills if they are to become graduates capable of competing in the variety of situations they may come up against in the workplace (Ali et al., 2017 ). Following this line of research, several works have tried to identify the most relevant soft skills that the job market demands from the point of view of students and company supervisors. Durán-Aponte and Durán-García ( 2012 ) highlight the relevance of ethical commitment, personal skills, teamwork and professional responsibility. Clemente-Ricolfe and Escribá-Pérez ( 2013 ) include analysis capacity, problem solving and teamwork. Freire et al. ( 2011 ) confirm that the most valued skills in the job market are responsibility, learning capacity, motivation, concern for quality and teamwork. Accordingly, we can observe that the common denominator of this research is that teamwork is one of the key soft skills that students have to acquire for their future professional success.

Furthermore, soft skills may contribute to their success in many academic and personal situations. The evidence has demonstrated that soft skills promote a series of tangible benefits for health, welfare, relationships, education and work. Given the variety of soft skills, we have turned to the systematic reviews in this area to determine which are the most frequently cited in education and the professional sphere (Gates et al., 2016 ; Lippman et al., 2014 ). Thus, we have observed that the highest valued soft skills by employers are integrity, communication, courtesy, responsibility, social skills, positive attitude, professionalism, flexibility, teamwork, creativity and work ethic.

It is worth pointing out the varying approaches to the definition of teamwork. Thus, in line with Hare ( 2010 ), our study interprets teamwork as a group of individuals with (a) commonality of goals across members, (b) synergy that emerges from members’ interdependence and (c) size, with at least two members viewed as sufficient. In addition, we should bear in mind that “teamwork” is sometimes considered a skill in itself; in this study, however, our focus is on measuring the soft skills that enable good teamwork, along similar lines as Bonavia et al. ( 2015 ).

The literature has considered many techniques and measurements for evaluating teamwork skills (Bonavia et al., 2015 ). For this study, we have chosen to use the test designed by O’Neill et al. ( 1999 ), a multi-dimensional scale analysing various dimensions of perceptions of teamwork. It includes the measurement of six key soft skills for teamwork: coordination, decision-making, leadership, interpersonal development, adaptability, and communication.

Finally, it is essential to note that studies designed to observe teamwork skills should consider the country’s social and cultural context since socio-cultural features can determine individuals’ behaviour and attitude towards teamwork. For example, one of the dimensions of culture, collectivism versus individualism, has been demonstrated to influence teamwork since the two positions will approach group work in a different way (Galanes et al., 2004 ).

Teamwork skills and socio-academic factors

Previous studies have identified a relationship between student attitudes towards teamwork skills and specific student characteristics such as gender, academic experience or academic performance. However, it is important to mention that research is scarce in the last two variables mentioned. It should also be noted that there is some controversy regarding the results of the studies consulted, especially concerning the academic experience and academic performance, probably due to the diverse cultural and educational contexts and the different measures used, as previously stated.

In what follows, we will describe relevant research about the three variables under consideration, including the context, instrument and data used.

Regarding the possible influence of gender on teamwork skills, it is essential to consider that male and female differences are present in all societies in many spheres (Ellemers, 2018 ), with degrees of variation created by various cultural influences. Economic-social development and religion, among others, can determine variations in gender (Best & Puzio, 2001 ). For this reason, providing information about participants and the contexts where studies are conducted is fundamental to interpret the results correctly and advance in the field.

Rodríguez-Gómez et al. ( 2018 ) analyse ten essential competencies in Spanish university students, including teamwork. They found significant differences in six of these competencies, indicating that women obtain a higher average score than men in five of the six competencies, teamwork being one of them. They emphasise the greater degree of statistical significance in the difference of means in teamwork competence. Al-Alawneh et al. ( 2011 ) investigate whether there are statistically significant differences in teamwork skills ratings in Jordan university students. For this purpose, they analysed six competencies related to teamwork (coordination, decision-making, leadership, interpersonal development, adaptability, and communication) and reported significant differences in communication skills and interpersonal development, the latter showing a higher average score in the case of women. Other studies also highlight gender differences in specific teamwork skills, although they do not clarify if those differences favour men or women. In this sense, Ilias et al. ( 2012 ), in a Malaysian context, or Al-Alawneh and Ashour ( 2011 ) for graduates of career and technical education institutions in Jordan, study the same six teamwork skills as Al-Alawneh et al. ( 2011 ). The former revealed significant differences between genders regarding adaptability and leadership, whilst the latter found significant differences in coordination, communication and interpersonal development.

Academic experience

Academic experience has been positively related to teamwork skills development, emphasising that final-year students are more likely to possess the required competencies for teamwork (Burdett & Hastie, 2009 ). However, as previously indicated, the research conducted in diverse contexts using different measures presents some inconsistencies in its findings. The related literature generally uses two indicators, the students’ age or the academic year. In our study, we have used the second indicator.

Rodríguez-Gómez et al. ( 2018 ) aimed to describe students’ perception of their level of competence in ten basic competencies related to assessment, including teamwork in a Spanish university context. They pointed out significant differences in teamwork for the academic experience variable, using the academic year as an indicator. They observed a substantial increase in teamwork competence from the second year onwards. Final year students reported the highest degree of development of teamwork competence (in the last year, the mean of the competence is x ¯ = 5.24 compared to the mean of x ¯ = 4.85 in the second year). In this way, students perceived that they improved this competence at the end of their university training. However, in a different context, Jordan, Al-Alawneh et al. ( 2011 ) did not find significant differences between students’ study level and the six analysed teamwork skills.

As indicated, other researchers use the age of university students to determine the academic experience and associate it with attitudes towards teamwork. In this respect, Payne & Monk-Turner ( 2006 ) found moderate relationships between USA university students’ age and some aspects of their attitude towards teamwork skills; specifically, older students considered contributing to other group members’ learning. Something similar happens with more senior students’ willingness to take on leadership roles, as Burdett and Hastie ( 2009 ) reported. Finally, regarding favourable or unfavourable attitudes towards teamwork, Beigi and Shirmohammadi ( 2012 ) concluded that age was not relevant in an Iranian context. Concerning this cultural context, it is essential to consider that the authors highlight that Iranian organisational culture focuses on individual work rather than team collaboration and report that Iranians, compared to other nationalities, are considered less effective in teamwork activities.

Academic performance

Academic performance is an indicator of the learning level achieved by students, and, for this reason, the education system considers it of particular relevance (Reyes, 2003 ). Academic performance has been defined in different ways (Alcaide, 2009 ), and two measures are normally used for their assessment, academic grades or objective tests (Matas, 2003 ). Following Cascón ( 2000 ), our study will use students’ academic performance GPA (grade point average) as the measure. This author found that the grades obtained in successive assessments and their corresponding point average are good criteria for measuring students’ academic performance. The different ways of measuring academic results must be considered to interpret research findings correctly.

In this sense, Lozano-Rodríguez et al. ( 2020 ), in Mexican universities, observed a significant correlation between teamwork skills and academic achievement, calculated using the grades obtained at the end of the academic term. Park et al. ( 2015 ) obtained similar findings in a South Korean context. They highlight that teamwork learning can improve academic performance.

Regarding students’ attitudes towards teamwork, it is important to consider that different cultural and educational contexts can organise and assess teamwork differently. Accordingly, students’ attitudes can vary depending on the perception that teamwork affects their marks (Burdett & Hastie, 2009 ). Likewise, it can be influenced by universities’ focus on teamwork skill training. It has been emphasised that assigning teamwork activities without guidance is not enough. Specific team-building skill training is required to be effective and achieve academic success (Cox & Bobrowski, 2004 ). The described factors can condition research results, as we can see in the following cases.

In an Iranian context, Beigi and Shirmohammadi ( 2012 ) observed no significant differences among students with diverse GPA regarding their attitude towards teamwork. Chapman and Van Auken ( 2001 ) in North America found a significant but small correlation between student attitudes towards teamwork and GPA. They concluded that students with higher GPA had less positive attitudes towards teamwork. However, in the Spanish context, students’ attitudes towards teamwork based on their previous experiences led to higher academic performance (Martínez-Romero et al., 2021 ).

Accordingly, although research highlights that teamwork exerts a beneficial influence on academic performance (Lozano-Rodríguez et al., 2020 ; Park et al., 2015 ; Martínez-Romero et al., 2021 ), specific training on developing effective teamwork skills can determine students’ academic success (Cox & Bobrowski, 2004 ). Considering the results mentioned above and the mixed findings for some variables that previous literature has yielded, the following hypotheses are put forward:

H1: There is a relationship between teamwork skills and gender.

H2: There is a relationship between teamwork skills and academic year.

H3: There is a relationship between teamwork skills and GPA.

This study aims to describe higher education students’ mastery of teamwork skills and its relation to certain socio-academic variables (gender, academic year and grade point average—GPA).

Participants

With the aim of determining the level of teamwork skills among university students, an observational, transversal descriptive study was designed with an intentional sample of Spanish university students (autonomous community of Galicia). Students are enrolled in social sciences degrees (Education and Business Management). These two degrees have been chosen for two reasons: firstly, they are part of the degrees with the highest number of students in this university, and secondly, their programmes include teamwork as a basic competence to develop.

The Spanish university system includes 82 universities (50 public and 32 private). The total number of students enrolled in 2020-2021 is 1,679,518. Undergraduate students represent 79.8% of enrolled students aged between 18 and 21, and only 5.9% are from other countries, mainly from the EU (2.6%) and Latin America and the Caribbean (1.4%). In the case of universities in the region of Galicia, the percentage of international students is even lower (2.6%). Women represent 56% of the total number of students enrolled (MEC, 2020 ).

The present sample consists of 615 students from the three public universities of the Region of Galicia. The cultural context of the study is homogeneous, primarily individuals sharing the same cultural background, languages, customs and religion. Male students make up 33% and female students 67%. The average age among participants is 21.52, the minimum being 18 and the maximum 43. The degrees are structured in four years. 31.4% of the students were in their first year, 26% in their second, 25.5% in their third and 17.1% in their final year.

Socio-academic factors

The proposed questionnaire included a series of variables related to certain socio-academic factors displayed by the participants:

• Gender: this was measured by asking the participants to indicate whether they were men or women.
• Academic year: students were also asked to state which academic year they were in (Spanish degrees are structured in 4 academic years).
• Academic performance: this was measured by asking students to indicate their GPA.

Teamwork skills

As stated in the previous literature, there are different tools for measuring teamwork. In our case, we chose the Teamwork Skills Questionnaire (TSQ) (O’Neill et al., 1999 ), which evaluates the general skill level of an individual in order to participate effectively in teamwork (TSQ) as well as the different components that influence this competence. Despite being a self-reporting tool, it is an excellent way of measuring these cross-curricular skills, given the difficulties in using direct measures (Marshall et al., 2005 ).

The questionnaire has six sub-scales: (a) adaptability; (b) coordination; (c) decision-making; (d) leadership; (e) interpersonal development; and (f) communication (O’Neil & Mashbun, 1997 , 413). This instrument was selected because it measures the most relevant competencies for teamwork.

Adaptability (items: 15, 21, 26, 30, 34) refers to being able to recognise problems at work and respond appropriately. Coordination (items: 6, 11, 17, 23, 32) is understood as an individual’s ability to organise team activities in order to complete a task on time. Decision-making (items: 3, 7, 12, 18, 24, 28) is the ability to use the available information to make team decisions. Leadership (items: 1, 4, 8, 13, 19, 25, 29) refers to the ability to lead a team. Interpersonal development (items: 5, 9, 14, 20, 33, 36) is related to the ability to interact cooperatively with other team members. Communication (items: 2, 10, 16, 22, 27, 31, 35) is the global exchange of clear, precise information.

The Teamwork Skills Questionnaire (TSQ) was chosen because of its reliability rate; the scale has good reliability, offering a range from .84 to .97 (Marshall et al., 2005 ; O’Neil et al., 2003 ). The results of our study suggest an adequate level of internal consistency, given that Cronbach’s Alpha ranges from .695 to .868 (Sijtsma, 2009 ) (Table ​ (Table1). 1 ). The psychometric properties of the scale confirm the factor structure of the original questionnaire composed of 36 items and its six factors ( χ 2 /gl = 3.67, CFI = .937, NNFI = .890, RMSEA = .056) and a very high internal consistency ( α = .938) (Portela-Pino et al., 2022 ).

Cronbach’s alpha coefficients for the Teamwork Skills Scales

The questionnaire was distributed to the students as a form sent through the university platform, thus enabling anonymous, voluntary and confidential participation. Ethical research protocols were respected, emphasising confidentiality and following the ethical rules outlined in the Declaration of Helsinki (AMM, 2017 ).

Data analysis

The data analysis procedure has varied depending on the study objective. Descriptive statistics were used to describe the basic features of the data. The next step was to conduct a means analysis using the Student t-test for dichotomous variables and the analysis of variance (ANOVA), followed by the Bonferroni post hoc test for polytomous variables. The effect size was calculated via Cohen’s d . In order to establish the relation between the scale variables, Pearson’s correlation was also calculated. Pearson’s chi-square was used to ascertain the association among categorical variables. Finally, a multiple linear regression analysis was carried out to identify the predictors of overall competence on teamwork (TSQ) according to socio-academic variables (method: enter). All the analyses were carried out with a confidence level of 95% through the statistical package SPSS 25.0.

Descriptive and univariate analysis

The students’ levels of competence in each of the factors measured are relatively high, except for leadership ( x ¯ = 2.71) and coordination ( x ¯ = 2.99) (Table ​ (Table2). 2 ). Thanks to the confidence interval, we can estimate between which values any real population value will fall, with a 5% margin of error, and as we can see, we are very close to the mean.

Skill level in each of the factors and in total

Hypothesis 1, evidenced in Table ​ Table3, 3 , which established a relationship between teamwork skills and gender, is accepted. We find that the male students score higher in leadership, whilst female students score higher in adaptability, coordination, interpersonal development and communication. There are no differences in decision-making.

T -student results based on gender for each of the factors, TSQ and GPA

* p < .05,.** p < .01; N : 615

The effect size was also calculated through Cohen’s d ( d = standardised means difference); the effect is small for all variables except for decision-making, which is large.

Hypothesis 2, evidenced in Table ​ Table4, 4 , where the academic year is a significant variable in skill level, is partially accepted. It would seem that the further along in their studies a student is, the greater their skill level, especially regarding adaptability and decision-making. Nevertheless, the differences are scarce in the other skills. The effect size was also calculated through Cohen’s d ( d = standardised means difference); the effect is small for variables.

ANOVA results based on academic year

* p < .05; N : 615

Multivariate analysis

Table ​ Table5 5 analyses the correlation between different factors and the independent variable GPA, put forward as hypothesis 3. A positive relation between skills and average academic marks can be found, except for interpersonal development.

Correlations between each of the factors, overall and GPA

* p < .05, ** p < .01; N : 615

Given that the variables gender, GPA and academic year influence teamwork competence, it is necessary to establish whether there are differences in GPA and academic year for gender. It is observed that women obtain higher GPA than men (see Table ​ Table3). 3 ). Based on these results, we have designed a regression model to explain the socio-academic variables that influence teamwork development according to gender.

Based on the overall objective of this research, a linear multiple regression analysis has been estimated. The results are presented in Table ​ Table6. 6 . On the one hand, the expected sign for each variable in relation to the dependent variable (overall competence on teamwork—TSQ) is included. On the other hand, both the model’s estimated coefficients (non-standardised) and the typified coefficients (standardised), referred to as β , are included. The fourth and fifth columns present the values of the statistic and its significance ( p -value < .05). The last column shows values VIF, which are lower than 10; this suggests no multicollinearity or internal correlations between the independent variables.

Multiple linear regression models for the total sample, for men and for women

Dependent variable: overall competence on teamwork (TSQ)

* p < .05; ** p < .01

For the total model (men and women), results show a statistically significant relationship between the dependent variable (overall competence on teamwork) and the academic year and GPA of 1% and, with the variable gender, of 5%. All the variables have the expected sign coefficient. Out of this group of variables, the one with the greatest specific weight over the response variable is the academic year ( β = .119). Accordingly, the regression analysis results show that although the independent variables are significant, their incidence to explain teamwork skills is limited.

In order to find out the academic variables that explain teamwork skills, a model was designed for each gender. Results confirm that both academic variables (GPA and academic year) influence teamwork skills mastery in the case of women, whilst no influence is found in the model for men. Additionally, in the model for women, all the variables have the expected sign coefficient, there is a statistically significant relationship between the dependent variable (overall competence on teamwork) and the academic year and GPA of 1%, and GPA is the variable with the greatest weight with respect to the dependent variable (teamwork) ( β =.152).

Discussion, conclusions and implications

University graduates should be efficient in their workplace. For this purpose, not only solid hard skills are required, but competencies that allow them to solve real-life problems. Universities are expected to provide specific training on skills such as problem-solving, critical thinking, cooperation or soft skills (Pöysä-Tarhonen et al., 2016 ), as the latter would appear to have a close relation with employability. However, training students in these skills is problematic because this type of instruction has not been traditionally contemplated in academic culture (Hirsch, 2017 ).

For these reasons, having a valid and reliable instrument to measure these skills is of great importance, not only for employers but also for university teaching staff. Results show a strong positive relationship between all the scale factors that vary between .179 and .733, and fundamentally between each of them and the total scale score. In the research carried out by Al-Alawneh et al. ( 2011 ), the range varied between .43 and .69, whilst in Brungardt’s study ( 2009 ), the correlation varied from .242 to .679. Therefore, this corroborates that the results obtained in our research are similar to previous studies.

Teamwork skills among students

We can confirm that social science students’ teamwork skills level in each of the soft skills measured is relatively high, except for leadership and coordination. However, it is essential to highlight that some studies have noted that graduates expressed the differences perceived regarding the soft skills acquired at university and those that are actually applied in an organisational context. To this respect, Pereira ( 2013 ) confirmed that there were significant differences between students’ perceptions of the soft skills acquired at university and companies’ perceptions. This discrepancy might point to a structural imbalance in the interaction between universities and companies, given that universities do not seem to address the skills demands of the workplace.

Differences in students’ level of teamwork skills based on socio-academic factors

The results of the study confirm the existence of significant differences in teamwork skills according to gender, academic year and GPA of the students.

Teamwork skills and gender

The male students were confirmed to have only obtained higher scores in leadership skills, whereas the female students scored higher in adaptability, coordination, interpersonal development and communication. No differences were noted in decision-making skills.

Our results are in the same line as other studies, such as the one carried out by Al-Alawneh et al. ( 2011 ) with Jordan university students. These researchers found significant differences in gender, indicating that women have better interpersonal skills since the mean scores of interpersonal and communication skills were higher for women. According to these authors, this result can be explained by considering Jordan women’s psychology, described to be more serious about their responsibilities and commitments with their families and society in general than Jordan men. It is also worth noting that, although not significant, men obtained higher scores than women in leadership skills. This result is explained by taking into account cultural differences since men are reported to have more opportunities to lead and make decisions than women. Conversely, other studies such as that of Beigi and Shirmohammadi ( 2012 ) conducted among students at the University of Iran confirmed a significant relationship but having male students slightly better attitudes towards teamwork than their female counterparts. The results of these two studies should be interpreted considering the cultural context where they occur. It is crucial to consider the influence of gender regarding culture (Galanes et al., 2004 ) and how it affects teamwork. These differences also could help explain the contradictions found between gender and teamwork performance (Schneid et al., 2015 ).

Considering the results obtained in our research, we can conclude that there are differences between genders regarding teamwork skills since female students scored higher in all analysed skills, except for leadership. From the point of view of training, these results are highly relevant as teamwork skills are considered fundamental for students’ integration into the job market and their professional development. However, as we have indicated, teamwork skills show significant gender differences.

On the one hand, women seem to show higher self-efficacy in teamwork (Peinado et al., 2015 ). In this respect, it is worth noting that self-efficacy beliefs influence academic success and students’ motivation to achieve their goals (Saunders et al., 2004 ; Vera et al., 2011 ). Equally, several studies confirm that women obtain better academic results than men at university (Khan et al., 2012 ; Wan Chik et al., 2012 ). Accordingly, teamwork gender differences seem to affect other highly relevant aspects for academic success, such as GPA.

Teamwork skills and academic year

The academic year has also proven to be a significant factor in skills development. It has been shown that the higher the academic year being studied, the higher the level of adaptability and decision-making. This evolution indicates that as students progress through the courses and gain more experience, they develop their skills more efficiently. In addition, First-year students’ reflective capacity, maturity, and commitment may be less developed than in later years (Burdett & Hastie, 2009 ). Our results align with the study by Rodríguez-Gómez et al. ( 2018 ) since they also observed that the students’ teamwork competence level improved as the courses progressed due to students’ perception of more significant development of their acquired skills in the last academic years. As could be expected, this evolution will depend on the specific training methodology employed in different universities and countries. The differences are not as evident as some studies have reported in some cases. For example, in a Jordan context, Al-Alawneh et al. ( 2011 ) found no significant differences in the six analysed teamwork skills (coordination, decision-making, leadership, interpersonal development, adaptability, and communication). Nevertheless, these authors also highlight that second-year students obtained higher scores than first-year students, which is consistent with research that recommends teaching generic skills in the second year (Aarnio et al., 2010 ).

Teamwork skills and GPA

Regarding the relationship between GPA and teamwork skills, the results of our research are consistent with other studies. Park et al. ( 2015 ), with South Korean university students or Lozano-Rodríguez et al. ( 2020 ), with Mexican ones, also found that teamwork skills were positively related to academic performance. In the Spanish context, Martínez-Romero et al. ( 2021 ) confirm these findings.

On the other hand, Chamorro-Premuzic et al. ( 2010 ), in their study carried out for undergraduate and post-graduate students from UK universities, point out that the scores in these skills are predictors of academic achievement. In this way, developing students’ teamwork skills can transcend all the positive benefits of such decisive competencies and improve their academic scores. Emphasising this connection is highly important, as some education systems neglect teamwork due to the consideration that it interferes with academic achievements (Lau et al., 2014 ). However, when institutional efforts are made, and specific training on effective teamwork skills is developed, students are more likely to achieve academic success (Cox & Bobrowski, 2004 ).

As exemplified here, teamwork is not only an essential transferable skill highly valued by employers but a strategic means to obtain better academic results. Students frequently underestimate this connection because they do not usually get grades for teamwork skills (Strom & Strom, 2011 ). The findings presented are highly relevant as they suggest teamwork can improve not only teamwork skills but also academic performance. Men might need to improve most of their teamwork skills to get higher academic marks and become professionals with more resources. On the other hand, women could consider being open and receptive to lead, trying to change their roles and testing their qualities and strengths. In this way, they could have the chance to transcend any barriers that might limit their capabilities.

Universities provide ideal environments for developing teamwork skills since these skills can be fostered from formal instruction, curriculum design, and non-formal perspectives. From the formal perspective, educational institutions can promote the organisation and implementation of teamwork training programmes. Specifically, teachers can include these skills in the design of their subjects. Some research has emphasised the role of specific innovative teaching techniques in the classroom, such as the micro flip teaching model (Fidalgo-Blanco et al., 2019 ), Project-based learning (Vogler et al., 2018 ) or experiential activities (Marasi, 2019 ).

Likewise, curricular elective subjects and extracurricular training courses have proven to be highly effective for teamwork skills acquisition (Cox & Bobrowski, 2004 ), so they should be promoted and included at an institutional level. In this way, students can acquire and develop teamwork skills through curricular, academic practices, and university extracurricular or free time leisure activities. Previous literature has observed that extracurricular activities have been shown to positively impact the acquisition of teamwork skills (Sherrod et al., 2002 ; Zaff et al., 2003 ). In this sense, Arat ( 2014 ) points out that university students also acquire these skills when engaging in activities such as sports, volunteering, art and design projects, long-term workshops and courses, travel, or learning to play an instrument. De Prada et al. ( 2021 ) observe that students who participate in musical activities, carry out multidisciplinary experiences in volunteering and participate in international workgroups have better teamwork skills.

Therefore, given the importance of teamwork skills for students’ academic performance and future employability, higher education institutions should endeavour to support and develop teamwork skills training from the first year at university (Burdett & Hastie, 2009 ; Cox & Bobrowski, 2004 ; Martínez-Romero et al., 2021 ) in order to guarantee students’ educational, social and professional success.

Limitations and future research

Among the limitations of this research, we should indicate that a self-assessment instrument, tested with an intentional sample, was used, so in future research, it would be advisable to carry out a qualitative analysis through interviews or discussion groups to help explain these results. For this reason, results are internally valid, i.e. applicable to the group under study; they cannot be generalised to other groups unless they share the same features. Accordingly, future research should include other degrees to check the differences among the different university training areas. Additionally, the study is based on a specific cultural context, the Spanish one, so replicating this study in other cultural contexts could be helpful to observe the potential effect of culture on teamwork skills.

Lastly, the list of socio-academic factors included in the questionnaire was limited and centred on students’ objective academic experience at university (year of study and GPA). Including new variables and using different analysis models would be interesting to study other factors and activities that might impact teamwork skills acquisition and development. In this sense, variables such as the cultural context, intercultural experiences, students’ field of studies, the presence of specific courses on teamwork training in the curriculum and students’ participation in team-based extra-curricular activities related to sports, music, or volunteering could add valuable insights.

Acknowledgements

The authors thank Mrs. Rebecca Ramanathan for her help in the translation and correction of the English version. To our colleagues in RED-IS (Red Educativa Docente-Innovar en Sociedad) for their critical comments on this study and support.

Abbreviations

Authors’ contributions

M.M., E.P and M.P. conceived and designed the study, analysed the data, and wrote the paper. All authors have read and agreed to the published version of the manuscript.

Authors’ information

Elena De Prada. Department of English, French and German. Faculty of Business and Tourism. University of Vigo. Campus Universitario, 32004 Ourense, Spain. Email: [email protected].

Ph.D. in Applied linguistics, specialist in TESOL (Trinity College London, England) and Professor. Her publications and research guidelines are focused on foreign language learning, teacher training, innovative teaching, learning methods, multilingualism, interculturality and creativity.

Mercedes Mareque (corresponding autor). Department of Financial Economics and Accountancy. Faculty of Business and Tourism. University of Vigo. Campus Universitario, 32004 Ourense, Spain. Email: [email protected].

Ph.D. in Financial Economics and Accounting and Professor. Her publications and research guidelines focus on the fields of financial audit, accounting and recently in the fields of creativity and educational innovation.

Margarita Pino-Juste. Department of Didactics, School Organization and Research Methods. Faculty of Education Sciences and Sports. University of Vigo. Campus A Xunqueira, 36005 Pontevedra, Spain. [email protected].

Ph.D. in Educational Sciences and Professor. Her publications and research guidelines are focused on the fields of design and evaluation of programmes, the evaluation of needs, inclusive education and social disabilities.

Declaration

This manuscript has not been published and is not under consideration for publication elsewhere. The authors declare no conflict of interest.

Publisher’s Note

Springer Nature remains neutral with regard to jurisdictional claims in published maps and institutional affiliations.

Contributor Information

Elena De Prada, Email: se.ogivu@adarpede .

Mercedes Mareque, Email: se.ogivu@euqeramsedehc .

Margarita Pino-Juste, Email: se.ogivu@onipm .

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Oral corrective feedback on l2 writing: two approaches compared, feedback on second language students' writing, exploring teacher written feedback and student revisions on esl students’ writing, corrective feedback in l2 writing: theoretical perspectives, empirical insights, and future directions, the efficacy of various kinds of error feedback for improvement in the writing accuracy of iranian efl learners, the role of direct and indirect written corrective feedback in improving iranian efl students’ writing skill, effects of scaffolding strategies instruction on efl students’ writing achievement and perceptions, learners’ processing, uptake, and retention of corrective feedback on writing, corrective feedback and personality type: a case study of iranian l2 learners, direct vs. indirect written corrective feedback: student perceptions, related papers.

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