The Civic-Minded Graduate Construct in the Context of the Engaged University - A Case Study of a University from Slovakia

Our exploratory study analyzes the civic-mindedness of university graduates in an engaged university with emphasis on Central and Eastern Europe, particularly Slovakia. The research sample consisted of 452 graduates of the second level of university studies. To map and analyze civic-mindedness, we used the Civic-Minded Graduate Questionnaire (CMG; Steinberg et al., 2011). At the selected university, graduates scored the highest in skills and dispositions and the lowest in behavioral intentions. Furthermore, we found that those graduates who volunteered during their university studies had statistically significant greater development in the areas knowledge, skills, dispositions, and behavioral intentions, as well as in CMG scale overall, than those who did not participate in volunteering. Our study showed that the CMG concept is usable in countries with different contexts of the development of the university environment and the idea of citizenship and can help map the level of civic-mindedness among university graduates.