Differential pathways to generic skills development of male and female college students in Korea

This study analyzed a stratified random sample of 1,707 senior students at 60 four-year universities in South Korea to explore the gender-specific pathways to Korean students’ development of generic skills—analytical thinking and problem-solving skills. Multiple regression analyses were performed to investigate the involvement factors differential effects on the development of students’ generic skills. The findings suggest that college student involvement plays a critical role in developing the important generic skills. Furthermore, male and female students do have different routes to the development of such skills. In the case of Korean students, at 4-year institutions of higher education, male students tend to develop generic skills more through formal and independent activities in and out of the classroom, whereas female students do so typically in an informal and interdependent way. These results call for additional scholarly investigation into gender influence on college impact and gender-dependent activities during college; moreover, they encourage institutions of higher education to adopt more gender-specific approaches to relevant institutional policies and practices.