PERSONAL ATTRIBUTES AND THE RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN EMERGING BUILDING MANAGEMENT SKILLS AND EMPLOYABILITY OF BUILDING GRADUATES IN AKWA IBOM STATE

Purpose: The study determined the extent to which personal attributes moderate the relationship between emerging building management skills and the employability of building technology graduates in Akwa Ibom State.

Design/methodology/approach: The descriptive survey research design was employed for the study. Krejcie and Morgan was used to determine a sample size of 213 respondents drawn from a population of 707 respondents. This comprises lecturers, building experts as well as Building technology graduates in Akwa Ibom State. Multistage sampling was utilized for the study. The researcher developed instruments titled "Emerging Building Management and Employability Skills Questionnaire (EBMESQ)" and the "Building Graduates Personal Attributes Questionnaire (BDGPAQ)" for data collection. The developed instruments were validated by experts in the Department of Building, University of Uyo, and the test-retest method was used to determine the reliability of the instruments. The instruments were tested on 40 respondents twice and Cronbach alpha was used to compute the reliability index which gave values of 0.88 and 0.83 respectively. Data for the study was collected and analyzed using multiple regression analysis and structural equation modelling (SEM).

Findings: Findings from the analysis showed a very weak positive relationship between building management skills and employability. It also showed that there is a positive but not significant moderating effect of personal attributes of graduates on the relationship between emerging building management skills and employability of graduates.

Practical implications: Based on the findings, it was recommended that tertiary institutions should establish industry-academia partnerships that allows for fruitful exchanges, supporting skills development and curriculum innovation.