Browsing by Author "Sahagian, Sanan Berj"

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    The Impact of Student Experiences with Diversity in Lebanese Universities on Developing Workplace Performance Attributes
    (2018) Sahagian, Sanan Berj
    On the campus of universities, the student populations present a great cultural, linguistic and socio-economic diversity. This diversity creates heterogeneity of needs and learning habits. One of the main objectives of a post-secondary education system is to prepare graduates for the job market. Therefore, greater emphasis must be placed on developing graduate attributes. University students’ experience with diversity has been found to have a positive effect on developing graduate attributes. A review of related literature on the impact of students’ experiences with diversity on developing graduate attributes reveals that there are three main categories of variables that nurture diversity and have an impact on developing these graduate attributes. These categories of variables are the following: • The welcoming environment of the university which includes the following cultural and structural characteristics of the university: trust and respect for all individuals, non-discriminatory policies/practices, campus structure-facilities encouraging interactions. • Diversity related activities/practices by the university which include: students exchange programs, cultural diversity awareness workshops/seminars, heterogeneous peer group projects, classroom discussions led by instructors that expose students to different types of knowledge and different perspectives. • Informal interactional diversity .i.e. the student’s relation and informal interaction with diverse peers. And the resulting attributes have been identified to be enhanced workplace performance attributes such as: self-confidence, communication skills, critical thinking, acceptance of others and overall workplace performance. In this study we wanted to see if the findings of the research literature hold true in the case of Lebanese universities. Therefore a survey research was conducted in seven Lebanese universities chosen based on the following criteria: their mission / vision statements as well as policy statements that address diversity, their non-Lebanese students’ percentage of the university’s student population, and their university’s student population percentage of the total Lebanese students. A survey research questionnaire was conducted to collect data on students’ experiences with the different aspects of diversity (described in the literature review). 284 students responded to the questionnaire which allowed us to analyze data collected with statistical techniques. The result of the study indicated that the student’s experiences with diversity in the Lebanese universities are in general positively related to developing workplace performance attributes except for some of the diversity related practices which did not have the expected impact. It also indicated that the Lebanese University is perceived by the students to be less encouraging diversity and interaction. The research also showed that the more students interact with their diverse peers the better their workplace skills are developed.