Lately there has been much interest in how university level studies develop students’ generic skills and to what extent
university education meets the requirements of working life. Generic skills are
needed in every profession and field. The term has been widely used during the
past few decades due to the rapid change in society and working life. In order
to develop teacher education in Finland, several research projects have been
launched.

The aim of this research was to find out preschool and primary school teachers’ perceptions to what extent and what kind
of generic skills their teacher’s pedagogical studies had supported most. The
data used in this study was collected electronically by E-lomake that was
distributed through different social media channels. The received answers of
induction phase teachers (n = 23) were analyzed both qualitatively and
quantitatively. To gain a better insight, two of the respondents were also
interviewed and the answers analysed qualitatively.

The results revealed that in general the respondents found that the attained generic skills helped them to cope with
working life. Communication in a foreign language, acting in a multicultural
environment, digital and communicative skills, and coping with stress were
mentioned as not relevant or needing more attention.