Skill Gaps and Gluts in Postsecondary Arts and Design Education
Understanding the extent to which alumni with degrees draw upon skills developed in arts and design programs is essential to evaluating the strengths and weaknesses of higher education institutions in preparing students for workplace life. We can classify skill gaps and gluts for arts and design alumni by comparing perceived importance at work and preparedness from education for different skills.
Figure 1 shows perceived importance versus perceived preparedness, averaged across all respondents for each skill. Arrows show increasing perceived importance or perceived preparedness. The line in the center represents where the perceived preparedness matches the perceived importance. Skills above the line have a lower perceived preparedness than perceived importance and are considered skill gaps. Skills below the line have a higher perceived preparedness than perceived importance and are considered skill gluts.
Figure 1: Skill Gaps and Gluts Experienced by Arts and Design Alumni
The SNAAP survey includes questions for alumni to rate both how important the skills they learned in school have been for their careers (perceived importance), and how well their alma maters helped them develop these same skills (perceived preparedness). All data are taken as weighted averages of respondents’ answers on a 1 – 4 scale. Only alumni who graduated from 1997 – 2022 received the preparedness questions, and only alumni who were currently working received the importance questions.
Source: 2022 SNAAP Survey
The results indicate that business/entrepreneurial* skills tend to be skill gaps, while art skills tend to be skill gluts, and communication skills are perceived as the most important in the workplace.
- Business, financial, and entrepreneurial skills had the lowest perceived preparedness on average
- Art techniques had the highest perceived preparedness and the lowest perceived importance on average
- Communications had the highest perceived importance on average
- Business/entrepreneurial and art techniques are furthest from the center (where perceived importance equals perceived importance) indicating their skill gaps or gluts were the most extreme
Figure 2 shows the percentage of respondents who reported skill gaps and gluts for each skill. The top half of the chart shows the percentage of respondents who reported higher perceived preparedness than importance for each skill, and the lower half of the chart shows skills with higher perceived importance than preparedness.
Figure 2: Relative Frequency of Skill Gaps and Skill Gluts
Respondents’ answers from 1 – 4 for perceived importance and preparedness were dichotomized into values of 0 and 1. For perceived importance: 0=Not important and Slightly important; 1=Important and Very important. For perceived preparedness: 0=Not all and Very little; 1=Some and Very much. After being dichotomized, we then calculated the difference between preparedness and importance to get negative values (skill gaps) and positive values (skill gluts). Frequencies are weighted. Neutral values (where importance = preparedness) are not shown.
Source: 2022 SNAAP Survey
The same skills that tend to be skill gaps and gluts on average across all respondents are also the most frequently reported skill gaps and gluts among individuals. Business skills are the most reported skill gap and art techniques are the most reported skill glut. Despite communication skills being perceived as the most important in the workplace, they are not frequently reported as skill gaps.
- Business skills had the highest reported frequency of skill gaps, while art techniques had the lowest
- Art techniques had the highest reported frequency of skill gluts, while communication had the lowest
- 38% of alumni reported business skills as a skill gap, and 38% of alumni reported art techniques as a skill glut
- Only 13% of alumni reported communication as a skill gap
* The following skill names have been shortened for space constraints:
- Business/entrepreneurial = business, financial, or entrepreneurial
- Creative thinking = creative thinking and problem solving
- Networking = networking and relationship-building
- Resiliency = to be resilient and pick yourself up when things do not go as planned
- Adaptability = to adapt to changing circumstances
- Career opportunities = to recognize opportunities to advance your ideas or career
- Cultural collaboration = to collaborate with others from cultures and demographics different from your own
- Problem solving = to evaluate multiple approaches to solving a problem
The Impact of the COVID-19 Pandemic on Arts and Design Alumni
The authors of this report, Dr. Rachel Skaggs, Dr. Jennifer L. Novak-Leonard and Dr. Jeff Barbee, provide insight into arts and design graduates whose work is — or before the pandemic was — in the arts, design, or creative realm by examining their working lives, economic lives, and the skills that they needed to attain or update during the first two years of the pandemic in the United States. This report was supported in part by the National Endowment for the Arts.
