Abstract
This paper investigates the integration of leadership training into IT curricula to develop current and future skills needed by the IT job market. The technical and non-technical skills required for IT professionals are presented and a conceptual model for including leadership training in technical courses is outlined. To implement this model, we adopted the Problem-Based Learning approach to teach an IT course. Qualitative and quantitative data were gathered, through a survey, from 52 undergraduate students in the College of Information Technology at Zayed University. Our results show that our adopted approach was successful in teaching IT skills as well as developing leadership skills. Given these findings, we highlight the importance and feasibility of integrating leadership development on a daily basis within technical courses to develop both the technical and non technical skills required by the job market.
Citation
Lahkim, M.B., Skulmoski, G.J. and Bruhn, R.E. (2009), "Improving IT education through leadership development", Learning and Teaching in Higher Education: Gulf Perspectives, Vol. 6 No. 1, pp. 30-52. https://doi.org/10.18538/lthe.v6.n1.03
Publisher
:Emerald Publishing Limited
Copyright © 2009 Mohammed B. Lahkim, Gregory J. Skulmoski and Russel E. Bruhn
License
This article is published under the Creative Commons Attribution (CC BY 4.0) licence. Anyone may reproduce, distribute, translate and create derivative works of this article (for both commercial and non-commercial purposes), subject to full attribution to the original publication and authors. The full terms of this licence may be seen at http://creativecommons.org/licences/by/4.0/legalcode
Acknowledgements
Publisher's note: The Publisher would like to inform the reader that the article “Improving IT education through leadership development” has changed pagination. Previous pagination was pp. 1-23. The updated pagination for the article is now pp. 30-52. The Publisher apologises for any inconvenience caused.