Identification of Occupational Competencies in Services for the Electromechanical Cluster

The research study was undertaken to provide data on skills and competencies to aid persons developing curricula for electromechanical technician training programs. Through a 73.8 percent return of 212 questionnaires distributed to Iowa electromechanical technicians, five occupational areas were identified as representative: residential appliance occupations, commercial appliance occupations, business and office machine occupations; industrial machinery and equipment occupations, and automated agribusiness equipment occupations. There exists a high correlation between the task performance of the five respondent groups; a core of common tasks was subdivided into nine task categories: diagnostic, maintenance and repair, measurement, clerical, instructional, miscellaneous, interpersonal, administrative, and safety. The latter three were emphasized by al