Learning opportunities for generic skills in profession-oriented study programmes

Generic skills are a central outcome of higher education and are increasingly important for civic engagement and changing labour market demands. While profession-oriented study programmes, such as teacher education, medicine, or law are known for their high labour market usability, insight into learning opportunities for generic skills is limited. This contribution compares learning opportunities for generic skills in teacher education with those in medicine and law. The study finds that teacher education may offer higher learning opportunities for generic skills compared to medicine and law. The analysis is based on an instrument designed to capture such opportunities, consisting of 27 items grouped into ten scales, which was implemented in a student survey. The analytical sample includes students from teacher education (N = 880), medicine (N = 444), and law (N = 276). Variance analysis with Scheffé post-hoc tests show teacher education students report significantly more opportunities than law and medicine students in five of ten areas, namely ‘digital work’; ‘planning and organizing’; ‘communication and cooperation’; ‘promoting others’ and ‘interculturality’. The results indicate that teacher education programmes foster the development of generic skills. The findings, along with their implications and limitations, are discussed.