The role of the undergraduate work placement in developing employment competences

Matthew Hall and Nicola BullivantPresentation to DECOWE conference, Ljubljana 24-26 Sept 2009

The Aston placement year

• Is a compulsory component of the four-year undergraduate degree for Home/EU students

• Optional for International students and students taking Combined Honours degrees – approximately half of these students opt in

• Taken in year three• Up to 600 students go on placement• We have excellent links with businesses globally• Graduate employability rates are consistently high

Placement Year – learning outcomes

• The following are the espoused learning objectives for the placement year:– To benefit from the integration of University study and work

experience in ways which facilitate critical reflection on each of these aspects

– To experience the responsibilities, tasks and relationships involved in managerial work at a level appropriate to a third year undergraduate student in a Business school

– Where students are specialising in a particular functional or professional area, to gain a greater practical understanding of their chosen specialism

Placement Year – learning outcomes (cont.)

– To gain an understanding of the ways in which their placement organisation operates and how this might relate to other organisations and management processes

– To build a personal awareness of their own interests, competencies, values and potential

– To develop the ability to share their work experiences and evaluations with their peers and with academic staff in order to gain more from their final year of study and to assist others to do likewise

– To increase their ability to make informed career choices and to enhance their employability

Introduction to our paper

We have five years of data on soft competences developed by students on their placement year

We compare these results to an earlier survey of competences which graduates and employers consider important in finding a job

This enables us to examine how competences developed during the undergraduate work placement contributes to graduate employment or ‘employability’

The data (MISLEM)

• Earlier research (the MISLEM project) identified a framework of 8 ‘soft’ or ‘generic’ competences considered valuable to employers when assessing the employability of graduates e.g. communication, team working and relationship building, self and time management etc

• This framework was tested in a survey of 900 employers and business graduates in 4 European countries

• Please see the handout or paper for a full list of the competences and the figures from the survey

The data (placement survey)

• For 5 years since 2004-5 we have been surveying and employers and students involved in the Aston Business School undergraduate work placement year

• We have upwards of 300 responses, representing a 70-80% response rate

• We ask about the ‘soft’ competences developed during the year using a framework developed by the National Council for Work Experience in the UK

• Students and employers are also given a blank space to write open comments about what they valued about the placement. From this some surprisingly common themes recur

• For a full set of data please see the handout or paper

Key findings from the placement survey

• In the placement survey both employers and students stressed how much the students’ (self) confidence has developed during the year

• Employers particularly highlighted establishing relationships as an important competence, as well as team working and managing change

• Students also stressed interpersonal skills, experience of work environment and office politics

• These findings suggest that a key part of the placement is about developing one’s social and interpersonal skills to be professionally effective in the organisational environment

• Higher level academic skills such as critical thinking and problem solving are less well developed during the placement year

Comparison of MISLEM and placement data

Employabilitycompetences

Placement competences

High

Low

Low High

Teamworking/ relationship building

Leadership

Verbal/ written communication

Influencing/ persuading/ negotiating

Time management

Critical thinking/ problem-solving

Conclusions and implications

• We need to be clearer about what are the competence-based learning outcomes for the placement year and how these should be developed e.g.– is leadership something which needs to and indeed can be

developed during the placement?– is confidence a competence to be acquired?– what is the role of ‘higher-level’ academic skills in the

placement (are these an application of technical knowledge?)

• We need to change the way we measure development of competences during the placement year (using the MISLEM framework) and make sure that we are measuring the right thing