Teamwork skills are considered essential for personal, academic and professional achievement, so universities are increasingly integrating them into their syllabuses. However, little is known about how some specific features of students and their educational development can affect their acquisition. Accordingly, this study aims to fill this gap and describe higher education students’ mastery of teamwork skills and its relation to certain socio-academic variables (gender, academic year and grade point average—GPA). With the aim of determining the level of teamwork skills among university students, an observational, transversal descriptive study was designed with an intentional sample of Spanish university students. The sample is made up of 615 social science degree students. The results suggest significant gender differences, highlighting that female students outdid their male counterparts in most teamwork skills, except leadership. Likewise, students’ skills improved as they progressed in their studies, particularly those skills related to adaptability and decision-making. Finally, a positive relationship was observed between teamwork skills and GPA, except for interpersonal development. A regression analysis confirmed the influence of both academic year and GPA for women whilst no effect was detected in the case of men. Based on these results, it is suggested to make changes in university education programmes to compensate for the influence of socio-academic factors and benefit from the most positive features of each gender regarding teamwork to achieve an equal and fair higher education.

Creative tourism is a novel segment of the tourism market that may turn into a great opportunity for small cities to attract visitors. Thus, it can be a possible economic and social driver for local development. Despite its potentiality, not much empirical research has been conducted to explore the specific strengths and weaknesses of developing creative tourism in small cities, probably due to the lack of reliable data. Our study aims to fill this gap by using the C3 Index, a composite indicator developed by the Joint Research Center-European Commission, as the data source, and the bootstrap method as a statistical tool to detect significant differences between small and large cities. Our findings reveal that the smallest cities show positive features to foster creative tourism (e.g., they have at least as good cultural infrastructures and cultural participation as the largest cities). However, in some other aspects, small cities still have room to improve (e.g., improvements in local and international connections or further development of the cultural and creative sector).

Teamwork skills have been demonstrated to be excellent allies for the academic and professional sphere, and they can improve students’ psychological balance and self-esteem. For this reason, it is important to explore the relationship between teamwork skills and self-esteem. Considering the relevance of soft skills and self-esteem in university training, the main objective of this study is to determine whether there is a relationship between teamwork skills and the successful development of self-esteem, a fundamental emotional factor in education. Additionally, we will analyse how self-esteem is related to other socio-academic factors (age, sex, and GPA). A questionnaire was distributed to social science university students. The Rosenberg 10-item scale, which aims to measure feelings of personal worth and self-respect, has been used to determine self-esteem. To measure soft skills for teamwork, we chose the Teamwork Skills Questionnaire, which evaluates the skill level of an individual in order to participate effectively in teamwork. The regression model indicates that self-esteem predictors related to teamwork skills are decision making, leadership, and communication. The results suggest significant differences in some individual variables, such as sex and age, with lower self-esteem being observed in females and older students. The described enriching interactions suggest the need to integrate teamwork training and self-esteem fostering at university to offer students lifelong competencies for their future success.

Introducción: El objetivo principal de este estudio es analizar la percepción de los empleadores y la autopercepción del alumnado para dos de las competencias clave desarrolladas en las prácticas externas: la creatividad y destrezas comunicativas. También se indaga en la existencia de diferencias para ambas competencias en función del sexo del alumnado y de la duración de las prácticas. Metodología: La población objeto de estudio está formada por los empleadores y alumnado participantes en las prácticas del Grado en Administración y Dirección de Empresas del Campus de Ourense (Universidade de Vigo). Se analizan 638 expedientes de prácticas, para lo cual se utiliza un enfoque observacional transversal mediante un diseño descriptivo correlacional. Resultados: Se observa la existencia de una correlación positiva y significativa entre las dos competencias, tanto en opinión de los empleadores como del alumnado. Además, cabe destacar la alta valoración de las destrezas comunicativas proporcionadas por ambos colectivos. Por el contrario, la creatividad no es tan altamente valorada, percibiéndola especialmente como más baja el alumnado. No se observan diferencias en ninguna de las competencias valoradas por parte de ambos colectivos en función del sexo del estudiantado. Sin embargo, el alumnado si percibe que la duración de las prácticas influye en la adquisición de las competencias. Discusión y Conclusiones: Las prácticas externas son un complemento idóneo a la formación universitaria para el desarrollo de competencias. El entorno laboral es clave para que se desarrolle la creatividad y la innovación, por lo que trasladar la implementación de las destrezas comunicativas a un contexto deliberadamente creativo como el empresarial puede contribuir a mejorar las habilidades del alumnado.

Despite the close connection between creativity, multilingualism and multiculturalism, limited research has focused on their specific features in contexts where English is a foreign language. In order to fill this gap, this paper examines this relationship in two different bilingual situations: Spanish–Galician (same cultural context) and Spanish–English (different cultural context). For this purpose, a survey was devised to elicit students’ multilingualism, multicultural experiences and creativity. The results show that advanced English skills improve creative development. They also verify that living in a new cultural context benefits bilingualism/multilingualism (English) and creativity. Additionally, it was confirmed that being bilingual in Spanish–English fosters creativity. However, no significant differences were found when students were bilingual in the same cultural context (Galician–Spanish). Thus, bilingualism/multilingualism is confirmed to impact creativity only when it occurs in different cultural contexts. The most significant implication emphasizes the need to foster opportunities for multiculturalism to increase creativity.

El objetivo de este estudio es analizar las percepciones de los empleadores y estudiantes universitarios sobre la capacidad técnica y el nivel de adquisición de las competencias transversales desarrolladas a través de las prácticas externas. Además, también se examina el contenido de las memorias de verificación de los grados objeto de estudio con la finalidad de contrastar que incluyen todas las competencias evaluadas en las prácticas externas. Para lo cual se analizan las prácticas externas realizadas por el alumnado de los grados de Ciencias Empresariales y Turismo durante cuatro cursos consecutivos y, se revisan las memorias de verificación de estas titulaciones. Los resultados indican una alta valoración en todas las competencias, destacando el trabajo en equipo. Además, se constata cierta arbitrariedad en el uso de los términos que contienen las memorias de verificación para definir las competencias y en algunos casos incongruencias en su identificación respecto al marco legal vigente.